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SUGGESTIONS 



GOVERNMENT 




S.^ErHVlOFFETT. 



4 



CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: 

RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY. 
1894. 



W 



'tfl^k 



Copyright, 1894, by S. E, Moffett. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I — The Source of Power, 9 

II — Direct Legislation, 24 

III — The True Functions of Representation, 46 

IV — The Referendum and the Popular 

Assembly, 53 

V — The Branches of Government, ... 60 

VI — Parties, 74 

VII — Municipal Government, 86 

VIII — Town and County Government, . . . 105 

IX — The State Legislature, 113 

X — The State Executive, 123 

XI — The National Legislature, 129 

XII — The National Executive, 160 

3£III — Proportional Representation, .... 167 

XIV — The Work of the Popular Assembly, . 179 

XV — The Boss, 184 

XVI — The Referendum in California, . . .192 

XVII — Some Practical Examples, 196 



INTRODUCTION. 



This book is an attempt to suggest remedies for 
certain defects disclosed by the experience of a 
hundred years in the working of our national, State, 
and local governments. Considering the marvelous 
transformation in all the conditions of human exist- 
ence, a transformation to which all previous history 
offers no parallel, and which has been more marked 
in the United States than anywhere else in the 
world, the political institutions of a century ago have 
served our purpose wonderfully well. But in some 
important respects we have outgrown them, as we 
must have done if they had been devised by arch- 
angels. Our present needs and dangers are not 
those which the fathers of the Republic foresaw. 
To read the debates on the adoption of the Federal 
Constitution is like intruding upon a convention of 
gibbering ghosts. We hear much about the possi- 
bility of the overthrow of liberty by standing ar- 
mies, about the control of elections by an aristocracy 
headed by the Society of the Cincinnati, and about 
the intrigues of foreign powers, corrupting Presi- 
dents and members of Congress, but nothing about 
trusts, syndicates, and omnipotent railroad corpora- 
tions, nothing about bosses and heelers, about con- 
solidated foreign "votes," about saloons as centers 

(5) 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

of political power, about "Solid Nines" and "Solid 
Thirteens " in city councils, and about the control 
of elections by caucuses and conventions controlled 
in their turn by the " machine." In short, the insti- 
tutions designed to meet one set of conditions are 
now called upon to meet quite another. Naturally 
they have broken down at various points, some of 
the most conspicuous of which are these : 

Our executive administration, local, State, and 
national, is inefficient. It is in the hands of politi- 
cal professionals, who are necessarily administrative 
amateurs. Devoting their chief attention to the 
science of politics, they are naturally unable to go 
deeply into the science of government. Brought up 
in the idea that offices exist for the purpose of pay- 
ing salaries on various scales to politicians of vary- 
ing degrees of influence, it seems natural to them to 
appoint a man postmaster at Oshkosh under one 
administration, send him as consul to Bordeaux 
on the next accession of his party to power, and 
recognize his services on a future occasion by mak- 
ing him Governor of Arizona. At its best an 
administrative system managed on such principles 
is incapable ; at its worst it is both incapable and 
corrupt. 

Our legislative bodies are suffering from the gen- 
eral paralysis of parliamentary government all over 
the world, and this paralysis is especially marked in 
Congress, where intelligent energy should be most 
conspicuous. It is becoming almost impossible to 
pass an important measure to which powerful inter- 
ests are opposed. The time of Congress is wasted 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

in roll-calls, futile attempts to hold evasive quorums, 
floods of superfluous talk, and obsolete ceremonies, 
and all the channels of legislation are choked by 
gorges of unnecessary bills. State Legislatures have 
generally fallen into contempt, and city councils 
beneath it. 

Local government, the peculiar province of the 
English race, the province in which our capacity 
from prehistoric times has been most conspicuously 
marked, has been reduced to a condition of imbe- 
cility and corruption, for whose match we must look 
to the rule of a Chinese mandarin. 

The individual voter has almost entirely lost con- 
trol over legislation and administration. In local 
affairs the boss is supreme ; in national matters 
parties profess to act in accordance with the popular 
will, but really move in the line of least resistance, 
as determined by the comparative strength of the 
various "pulls" exerted at the seat of government. 
Even when honestly desirous of doing what the 
public wishes done, they have no means under our 
present arrangements of knowing definitely what 
that is. The Republican successes in the State elec- 
tions of 1893 were variously interpreted as a com- 
mand to Congress to stop reforming the tariff, and a 
rebuke for not reforming it fast enough ; as a con- 
demnation of the President for pushing through 
anti-silver legislation, and an expression of disgust 
at the delay of the Senate in carrying out the Presi- 
dent's policy. There is no lesson whatever that an 
expert political weather prophet can not extract 
from election returns. If we are to allow the popu- 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

lar will any influence at all, we must have some 
means of making it unmistakable. 

Various plans for the improvement of our political 
conditions have been proposed. I offer my sugges- 
tions for what they are worth. 

Berkeley, Cal., August, 1894. 



Suggestions on Government. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE SOURCE OF POWER. 

The American citizen is fond of calling himself a 
sovereign. As a rule, however, his only act of sov- 
ereignty is that of deciding which of two bosses shall 
rule over him. When the two bosses are privately 
in partnership, as they often are, the principle of 
independent self-government, as we practice it, is 
carried to its logical limit. 

The first requisite to a thorough reform in Amer- 
ican politics is the restoration of close contact 
between the individual citizen and the agents whom 
he selects to conduct his public affairs. Everything 
depends upon that. We often talk about the advan- 
tages of managing the Government on business 
principles, but no attempt has yet been made in this 
country to carry out the idea to its natural con- 
clusion. Municipal reformers have imagined that 
they were returning to business principles when 
they advocated the concentration of executive power 
in a mayor elected for two years, and of legislative 
power in a council elected for the same period, and 
subject to the mayor's veto. To comprehend the 

(9) 



10 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

business-like nature of this arrangement it is suffi- 
cient to imagine it transferred to the affairs of a 
private establishment. We may suppose the owner 
of a great dry-goods house saying to his manager: 
" You are to have the absolute control of the business 
for two years, except when a new policy is to be 
adopted, and then you will have the assistance of a 
dozen clerks. I shall keep my eye on you, and if I 
see you wasting my money or tangling up my 
affairs, I shall beg you to stop. You are under no 
obligation to pay any attention to my wishes, but, if 
you persist in wrecking the business, I may get a 
new manager when your two years are up, if you 
have left anything to manage." 

The first principle of business is that the pro- 
prietor shall have, not merely the right of reviewing 
the actions of his employes at fixed intervals, but 
absolute control of them all the time. This should 
also be recognized as the first principle of sensible 
politics. 

But how is the individual voter, who is the political 
proprietor, to exercise his right of regular control 
over his servants ? He must do it through a legal 
organization, and the best form of organization for 
the purpose is the popular assembly. The ancient 
Teutonic folkmoot is still the basis upon which a 
thoroughly trustworthy government must rest. All 
students of our institutions unite in commending the 
admirable workings of the New England town meet- 
ing, but they do not seem to realize the fact that the 
principle of the town meeting is not bounded by the 
needs of a rural community, but is one of universal 



THE SOURCE OF POWER. 11 

application. This truth has been more nearly recog- 
nized by Mr. Albert Stickney than by any other 
writer with whom I am familiar, and I wish at the 
outset to acknowledge my obligations to his works 
for ideas on this subject, which have been of infinite 
service to me, and of which I have not hesitated to 
make free use. But even Mr. Stickney, in his 
luminous exposition of the value of the public meet- 
ing as the primary organ of sovereignty, falls short 
of appreciating its full possibilities. He limits the 
work of the local assembly to local matters, and 
contemplates an irrevocable delegation of the power 
of the people to representative bodies ; and he con- 
fides a more implicit trust in these bodies than there 
is any reason to believe they deserve, or would 
deserve, even under an ideal method of election. 
The people in their primary assemblies should not 
only be the ultimate source of power, but its per- 
manent depository. They should be able to check 
and guide the proceedings of their executive and 
legislative servants at every stage. 

The world has never yet had an opportunity to 
see what a scientifically organized system of govern- 
ment, regulated by public meeting, can accomplish, 
and yet it has witnessed some amazingly successful 
results, even with the imperfect methods hitherto 
in vogue. The Athenian Assembly was too vast 
for anything like real deliberation ; the New Eng- 
land town meeting tries to do a year's business in 
one day, and the Swiss Landesgemeinde combines 
both of these disadvantages. Excellent work on 
democratic lines is done by village communities in 



12 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

various countries, but as it is all of a local nature it 
fails to call out the highest interest of the electors. 
An assembly of moderate size, in which every voter 
would be able to express his individual opinions, 
and which would not only deal with local affairs but 
would directly exercise a share of the national 
sovereignty, would develop a degree of intelligent 
activity in the citizenship of which as yet we have 
had no example. 

If the country were evenly settled, with a moderate 
degree of density, it would be easy to divide it into 
precincts, or townships, of about five hundred voters 
each, and these could be made the basis for a sym- 
metrical system of representation and legislation ; 
but we must build upon existing conditions, and 
make some sacrifice of symmetry to convenience. 
The assembly of five hundred voters, however, may 
be considered the normal unit of the body politic. 
In small towns it would constitute the supreme local 
government ; in larger ones it would form a council 
district. It would elect a county supervisor, and, 
alone or in conjunction with others, a member of the 
State Legislature. It would be the organ for the 
expression of the popular will in the initiative and 
referendum. It would be an arena in which all 
political and social elements would meet on common 
ground, and every measure of public policy would 
find assailants and defenders. 

The American citizen is the most diligent at- 
tendant on public meetings in the world, but the 
trouble is that he wastes his strength in futilities. 
It is pitiful to see him striving to satisfy his craving 



THE SOURCE OF POWER. 13 

for association and deliberation with his fellow-men 
by decking himself out in the regalia of some 
" order " and parroting " rituals," or performing the 
solemn duty of " attending the primaries," whose 
decisions have been prepared in advance and forti- 
fied by stuffed rolls in the back-room of some saloon ; 
or taking part in indignation meetings to make 
" demands " on officials, which there is no legal 
power to enforce ; or joining in campaign rallies at 
which candidates rhapsodize over the beauties of 
platforms which they will forget by the day after 
election. When citizens are willing to put them- 
selves to so much inconvenience to accomplish 
imperceptible results, or no results at all, it is 
hardly unreasonable to assume that they will be will- 
ing to take a considerably smaller share of trouble for 
the sake of exerting a direct and material influence 
upon the management of public affairs in all their 
ramifications, State, local, and national. 

Universal suffrage has been criticised for making 
no distinction between wisdom and folly in the 
voters. Mr. Stickney has explained, so well that the 
elaboration of the point here would look like 
plagiarism, how the popular assembly meets this 
objection by making votes count by weight as well 
as by numbers. The man of intelligence can 
explain his views to the meeting and carry his less 
acute auditors with him. The man of lustrous 
integrity can always command a following for any 
plan to which he lends the sanction of his name. 
Disreputable votes would be neutralized by the 
repulsive influence of the men who cast them. 



14 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

The habit of discussing pubfic questions in 
assemblies in which all shades of belief were repre- 
sented would tend to promote a spirit of moderation 
and mutual concession. Under our present methods 
the country is split into innumerable cliques, in each 
of which narrow-minded intolerance is rampant. 
The members of bankers' associations encourage 
each other in the belief that farmers are visionary 
lunatics; farmers flock together in alliances and 
granges, and resolve that bankers are Wall Street 
cormorants ; manufacturers and railroad managers 
commiserate each other on the total depravity of 
workmen, and the halls of labor unions echo with 
denunciations of the tyranny of employers ; Repub- 
lican conventions announce that Democrats are 
bought with British gold, and Democratic conven- 
tions brand Republicans as the hirelings of the 
American plutocracy. Even when the people of a 
city are discussing such a matter as a proposed issue 
of bonds for the acquisition of water-works, they 
do not, as a rule, come together and candidly discuss 
all the arguments, pro and con, but the advocates of 
the proposition hold a series of meetings in which 
the opponents of the plan are pilloried as the tools 
of a corporation, while the objections to the scheme 
are set forth in another series of meetings in which 
its promoters are arraigned as the heelers of polit- 
ical bosses. Neither side gives any fair considera- 
tion to the arguments of the other. A common 
assembly, in which men of all parties, creeds, and 
positions in life should meet on even terms, and 
every man should have an equal opportunity with 



THE SOURCE OF POWER. \ 15 

\ 

every other to convince his neighbors of thV sound- 
ness of his vie^vs, would be sure to mitigate asperi- 
ties, prevent rash and unbalanced decisions, and 
secure the nearest possible approach to a wise deter- 
mination of public issues. 

The assemblies should meet, of course, at the most 
convenient times and places. Instead of accu- 
mulating so much business as to absorb an entire 
day, as in the New England towns, they should 
meet often enough to dispose of their work com- 
fortably in an evening. One evening in a month 
would probably be found sufficient in most cases. 
Special meetings should be held as often as required. 
The attention of the assembly should not be dis- 
tracted by a multiplicity of duties. As a rule, not 
more than two or three subjects should be disposed 
of at one meeting, and never more than one at a 
single vote. 

The assemblies would dispense with all our pres- 
ent cumbrous and costly election machinery. They 
would take charge of the registration of voters, 
which should take place in every precinct in open 
meeting. Any qualified resident of the precinct 
should have the privilege of signing the roll at any 
meeting, subject to the challenge of any voter 
present, but he should not be permitted to take part 
in the proceedings until the following month, in 
order to give time for an investigation of his right 
to vote. Ordinary questions coming up for deci- 
sion would usually be decided viva voce, but all 
elections of officers should be by ballot, and a small 
number of voters, say five, should have the right to 



16 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

demand a ballot on any question. Nominations for 
office should be open up to the moment of balloting. 
The essential features of the Australian system 
could be preserved with the utmost cheapness and 
simplicity. A small booth could be set up on each 
side of the platform, in full view of the meeting. 
The secretary could be provided with a supply of 
hand-stamps and movable rubber type. Nominations 
being called for, each name submitted could be set 
up in a stamp for each booth. When the nomina- 
tions were concluded the stamps, with ink-pads 
and a sufficient number of slips of blank paper, 
could be put in the booths, and the voters could pass 
through, one at a time, and prepare their ballots. 
If, from intimidation or any other reason, the friends 
of any candidate failed to nominate him in open 
meeting, there would be nothing to hinder them 
from writing his name on their ballots. As soon as 
the votes were cast they would be counted in the 
presence of the assembly, and the work of the elec- 
tion would be over. As everything would be done 
in an evening, after business hours, there would be 
no need of paying the judges and clerks, and the 
whole cost of the election could be limited to the 
price of the blank paper and ink and the wear and 
tear of the hand-stamps. 

Of course this plan would not work where seventy 
or eighty officers were to be voted for at once, as is 
often the case under present conditions. But this 
multiplicity of elective officers is recognized on all 
hands as an evil that must be abolished before we 
can hope to secure any improvement in our govern- 



THE SOURCE OF POWER. 17 

ment, or even to check its progressive degradation. 
Under a proper system of official tenure, there would 
never be any necessity of electing more than one 
officer at a time. 

The plan of election suggested would enable us to 
go back to the wise and safe principle of majority 
rule. No candidate should ever be elected except 
by an absolute majority of all the votes cast. In 
this country circumstances have conspired to give 
the pernicious system of plurality election a fac- 
titious popularity. Chief among these circumstances 
has been the caricature of majority rule existing in 
some New England States — a perversion by which 
a small minority has been enabled to retain perma- 
nent power. Candidates for State offices have been 
required to secure a majority on the first ballot, and 
in default of this have been compelled to submit 
their claims to a Legislature so apportioned as to be 
always controlled by a minority of the people. Can- 
didates for the Legislature have been forced into an 
indefinite succession of re-ballots, without any pro- 
vision for reaching an ultimate conclusion, until the 
patience of their constituents has been exhausted 
and the attempt at election has been abandoned. 
Instead of correcting these defects the tendency has 
been to escape from them by plunging into plurality 
rule, which is another name for machine rule. When 
a plurality can elect, the support of party nomina- 
tions, good or bad, becomes a necessity for voters 
who regard the principles of their party as more 
important than the merits of candidates. Any divis- 
ion of the party vote may let in the other side. 



18 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

When a majority is required to elect, votes may 
safely be scattered. There should be a provision, 
however, for reducing the number of candidates 
after the first ballot, in order to bring the contest to 
an early conclusion. It would not be expedient, as 
Mr. Gamaliel Bradford proposes, to eliminate all the 
candidates but the highest two on the second ballot, 
for that would destroy independent voting almost 
as effectually as election by pluralities. Suppose, 
for instance, that the Democrats, being in the major- 
ity in a given constituency, should divide their votes 
on the first ballot among four candidates, and the 
Republicans among only two. Each of the two 
Republican candidates would probably have more 
votes than the highest Democratic, and the Demo- 
cratic majority would be reduced on the second bal- 
lot to a choice between Republicans. This possi- 
bility would force partisans to stick to the regular 
nominees from the beginning. 

Independent voting could be made safe enough 
for all practical purposes by the adoption of the 
preferential principle, combined with a provision 
for two possible supplementary ballots. The work- 
ings of the system will be described in more detail 
in the chapter on Proportional Representation, but 
it may be said briefly that it would allow every 
voter to stamp on his ballot the names of candidates 
in addition to his first choice, indicating by num- 
bers, or by the arrangement of names, his order 
of preference among them. If any candidate had 
a majority of first-choice votes he would be elected. 
If not, the candidates having the fewest first-choice 



THE SOURCE OF POWER. 19 

votes would be eliminated, and their votes would 
be counted for those whose names stood second 
in order on their lists. This process would be 
continued until some candidate had a majority 
or the preference lists became exhausted. Under 
this plan an election would almost always be 
brought about on the first ballot, but it might 
occasionally happen that the voters would be so 
divided into groups, each confining its expressions 
of choice within its own circle, that after all possible 
eliminations and transfers had been made a united 
majority would still be lacking. In this case a 
second ballot could be held, limited to the five 
candidates receiving the highest votes on the first, 
or to such smaller number as remained in the field 
after the possible eliminations had been completed. 
With the help of transfers an election would be 
almost inevitable on this ballot, but in the almost 
impossible contingency of a continued failure to 
elect a third ballot could be ordered, at which only 
the two leading candidates could be voted for. 
This would insure a choice except in case of a tie, 
when the result could be decided by lot. 

Under our present method these supplementary 
ballots would cause some trouble and expense, but 
with election by popular assemblies, in the manner 
suggested, all inconvenience would disappear. In 
the case of local offices, if no candidate were elected 
on the first ballot, the chairman of the meeting 
would announce the fact, and order a second, and, if 
necessary, a third trial, on the spot. In the case of 
officers representing larger constituencies the pro- 



20 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

cess would require a little more time, but no more 
trouble or expense. When the votes were can- 
vassed by the central authority and the lack of a 
majority discovered, the assemblies would be noti- 
fied to vote again at their next meetings, and if a 
third ballot were required the process would be 
repeated. If time pressed, special meetings could 
be called. It would be important, of course, to have 
all meetings at which joint action was to be taken 
held on the same day. 

For all business except elections the presence of a 
majority of the registered voters of the precinct 
should be required to constitute a quorum. This 
would prevent the affairs of the locality from fall- 
ing into the hands of a little knot of regular 
attendants at the meetings while the citizens in 
general stayed at home. The assembly should 
have the right, just as in the case of a representative 
legislative body, to compel the attendance of 
absent members, under penalty of fine or sus- 
pension from the privilege of voting. But even 
if it did not exercise this right, and persistent 
abstentions delayed the public business, no harm 
would result, for the delinquents would begin to 
feel the inconvenience caused by their neglect of 
duty, and would soon muster in sufficient numbers 
to keep the machine going. 

In the case of elections, however, no fixed quorum 
should be required. The proper punishment for a 
failure to vote for good officers is to be ruled by bad 
ones. If good citizens do not take sufficient interest 
in their own affairs to elect the right men to office, 



THE SOURCE OF POWER. 21 

it is fitting- that the persons who do take enough 
interest to vote should be allowed to have their own 
way. It may be said that the same principle would 
apply to all kinds of business, but there is a differ- 
ence. An unfortunate choice of officials can always 
be corrected, especially under the system of tenure 
to be hereafter explained, but a mistake in meas- 
ures is sometimes irremediable. Besides, if the 
assemblies were allowed to act on all questions, 
regardless of the number present, the fact that 
business always got itself accomplished somehow, 
whether the mass of the voters turned out or not, 
might induce in them a stay-at-home habit, which 
would be demoralizing. 

Even if parties retained their vigor, which would 
be impossible after the custom of direct legislation 
became well established, the combination of open 
nominations and majority elections would destroy 
the power of the political machines. That power 
rests, first, upon the control of nominations, and, 
second, upon the necessity pressing upon the rank 
and file of the party of supporting those nominations, 
under penalty of suffering defeat in the election. 
If anybody could nominate candidates up to the 
hour of voting, and partisans could scatter their 
votes without fear of giving the election to the other 
party, a machine nomination would carry no more 
weight than would be given by the character of the 
men who made it. 

The public-meeting system would enable young 
men to get into politics without crawling through 
the mud. There would be no necessity of bargain- 



22 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

ing with a boss for an opportunity to be heard. 
Every citizen would be a legislator as a matter of 
right. He could attend the meetings of his precinct 
assembly, express his views there, and fit himself by 
practice in debate, in lawmaking, and in honorable 
political strategy, for more extended responsibilities. 
No debating society or school of politics could com- 
pare in fascination or in educating power with 
this open arena, whose prizes would be the things 
that grown men strive for, and not the counterfeit 
honors of school-boys. 

There is many a man who would not accept the 
Presidency of the United States, if he had to pawn his 
self-respect with a boss to get it, but who would 
gladly devote time and effort to work in a local 
assembly which he could enter freely, without any 
man's permission, and in which he could try, by 
honest, open argument, to win his neighbors to his 
views. The practice of acting together in such 
assemblies would develop among the people of every 
locality a habit of listening to reason instead of 
basing conclusions entirely upon prejudice and pas- 
sion. The feeling, too, that their deliberations were 
not mere talk, or mere appeals to officials to do 
something that might be refused, but were in them- 
selves the very mainsprings of political action, would 
give them the sobering responsibilities of power. 

When we remember that thousands of high- 
minded citizens are now willing to encounter the 
repulsive atmosphere of primaries held in saloons 
and billiard halls, for the sake of grappling with 
political evils intrenched behind almost every pos- 



THE SOURCE OF POWER. 23 

sible advantage, and that thousands more are doing 
hard, thankless, unpleasant work for the same ends 
through Good Government clubs and similar organi- 
zations, we can hardly doubt that they would wel- 
come the opportunity to make a clean, open fight for 
the right on a fair field. 



CHAPTER II. 

DIRECT LEGISLATION. 

The ideal democracy is that form of government 
in which the people in their own persons "make their 
own laws. This was the only form of democratic 
rule known to the civilized republics of antiquity. 
It was abandoned for purely physical reasons, be- 
cause as States grew in size it became impossible for 
the citizens to gather and deliberate in a single 
assembly, and it was not seen how they could 
deliberate and vote without coming together in one 
place. This was why Rousseau thought that a true 
republic must necessarily be small. Montesquieu 
saw the logical connection between democracy and 
direct popular legislation, and he, too, was staggered 
by physical difficulties. "As, in a free State," he 
said, " every man who is held to have a free spirit 
ought to be governed by himself, the people in a 
body ought to have the legislative power; but as 
that is impossible in large States, and subject to 
many inconveniences in small ones, it is necessary 
that the people do by their representatives all that 
they are unable to do by themselves." 

The Teutonic device of representation was such a 
convenient substitute for the unwieldy, popular 
mass-meeting that it gradually came to be looked 
upon as a political end in itself, instead of as a con- 

(24) 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 25 

venient means of enabling the electorate to evade 
the limitations of time and space, and we now hear 
practical methods of restoring the direct rule of the 
people criticised as " violations of the representa- 
tive principle." The representative system is a 
convenient medium for the transmission of political 
power, just as a system of shafts and pulleys is a 
convenient medium for the transmission of mechan- 
ical power, and it would be precisely as reasonable 
to object to a plan for gearing a generator directly 
to the machine it was to work, as a violation of the 
shaft-and-pulley principle, as to object to a practi- 
cable plan of direct legislation as an infraction of the 
principle of representation. 

The Swiss method of popular law-making through 
the referendum and initiative has been made so famil- 
iar to the American public through the works of Vin- 
cent, Adams and Cunningham, Moses, Winchester, 
McCracken, Cree, Sullivan, and others, that no very 
detailed account of it is necessary here. In Switzer- 
land, thirty thousand voters, or eight cantons, may 
demand the submission of any law passed by the 
Federal Assembly to the people at the polls, and fifty 
thousand voters may demand the submission of a con- 
stitutional amendment proposed by themselves. All 
the cantons, except Freiburg, have the referendum 
in some form, and in several of them it is obligatory. 
In these no general law is valid until it has been rati- 
fied by a popular vote. The voting is carried on by 
ballot, precisely as in the election of officials. 

Although this particular form of direct legislation 
is, as I believe, capable of great improvement, it is 



26 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

so infinitely superior to our present methods of law- 
making, that, if we should transplant it bodily to the 
United States, we should be vastly the gainers. The 
testimony of foreign observers to its admirable work- 
ing in Switzerland is almost unanimous. If we had 
nothing but theory to guide us, we should infer that 
the right of appeal from a legislative body to the 
people would greatly diminish the intensity of party 
conflicts; that it would tend to keep legislators 
of ability in place, regardless of their opinion on 
current issues; that it would promote sincerity 
among public men, prevent filibustering and log-roll- 
ing, check corruption, and make legislative debates 
business-like discussions of practical matters, instead 
of oratorical tournaments for the benefit of the 
reporters. Practical Swiss experience has shown 
us these results in actual operation. 

" One in visiting the chambers of the Assembly," 
remarks one observer, "is much impressed with 
the smooth and quiet dispatch of business. The 
members are not seated with any reference to their 
political affiliations. There are no filibustering, no 
vexatious points of order, no drastic rules of cloture, 
to ruffle the decorum of its proceedings. Interrup- 
tions are few, and angry personal bickerings never 
occur. . . . Leaves to print, or a written speech 
memorized and passionately declaimed, are un- 
known; there are none of these extraneous and 
soliciting conditions to invite ' buncombe ' speeches 
or flights of oratory for the press and the gallery. 
The debates are more in the nature of an informal 
consultation of business men about common inter- 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 27 

ests ; they talk and vote, and there is an end of it. 
This easy, colloquial disposition of affairs by no 
means implies any slip-shod indifference or super- 
ficial method of legislation. There is no legislative 
body where important questions are treated in a 
more fundamental and critical manner."* 

The same author adds that " the members of the 
Assembly practically enjoy life tenure ; once chosen 
a member, one is likely to be reelected as long as 
he is willing to serve. Reelection, alike in the 
whole Confederation and in the single Canton, is the 
rule ; rejection of a sitting member, a rare exception. 
Death and voluntary retirement accounted for nine- 
teen out of twenty-one new members at the last gen- 
eral election. There are members who have served 
continuously since the organization of the Assembly 
in 1848. Referring to this sure tenure of officials 
generally, the President of the Confederation, in a 
public address, said : ' Facts, and not persons, are 
what interest us. If you were to take ten Swiss, 
every one of them would know whether the country 
was well-governed or not, but I venture to say that 
nine of them would not be able to tell the name of 
the President, and the tenth, who might think he 
knew it, would be mistaken.' To some extent this 
remarkable retention of members of the Assembly 
may be ascribed to the fact that the people feel 
they are masters of the situation through the power 
of rejecting all measures which are put to the popu- 
lar vote." f 



*Boyd Winchester, " The Swiss Republic," p. 78. 
f Winchester, p. 80. 



28 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

And again : 

"■The members of the Federal Council can be, and 
are, continually reelected, notwithstanding sharp 
antagonisms among themselves, and it may be 
between them and a majority in the Assembly. 
They also continue to discharge their administrative 
duties, whether the measures submitted by them are, 
or are not, sanctioned by the voters. The rejection 
of measures approved and proposed by them does 
not necessarily injure their position with the coun- 
try. The Swiss distinguish between men and meas- 
ures. They retain valued servants in their employ- 
ment, even though they reject their advice. Valuing 
the executive ability of these men, still they may 
constantly withhold assent from their suggestions. 
The Council, substantially in its present form, came 
into existence with the constitution of 1 848, the first 
election of its members taking place in November 
of that year. The election, therefore, which oc- 
curred on the 13th of December, 1887, was the four- 
teenth triennial renewal of the Council, and covered 
a period of thirty-nine years. During this period 
the complete roster of the members embraces only 
twenty-seven names ; even this small ratio of change 
resulted in seven cases from death and eleven from 
voluntary retirement, leaving only two who failed 
to be reelected on the avowed ground of political 
divergence. This most remarkable conservatism on 
the part of the Assembly, in retaining the members 
of the Council by repeated reelections, has survived 
important issues of public policy, including several 
revisions of the constitution, upon which there was 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 29 

a wide diversity of opinion in the Council, some of 
whom actively participated in the discussions, antag- 
onizing the views of a majority of the Assembly — 
the Assembly to which they owed their election, and 
upon which they relied for their retention in office. 
Their periodical reelection, though seemingly pro 
forma, carries with it a salutary sense of accountable- 
ness. This sure tenure of service in the Federal 
Council makes those chosen look upon it as the busi- 
ness of their lives. Without this permanence 
attached to the position, such men as now fill it 
could not be induced to do so." * 

The testimony of other witnesses to the effect of 
the referendum in securing stability in the per- 
sonnel of the government is quite as emphatic. 
"The composition of the National Council has 
changed but little of late," say Adams and Cun- 
ningham. " The Swiss voter is quite ready to vote 
again and again for the same candidates ; he proba- 
bly looks upon them as good men of business with 
long experience of parliamentary and federal af- 
fairs, and he knows very well that if measures are 
passed, of which, for some reason or other, he does 
not approve, he and his fellows can combine to 
reject them at the referendum. This, however, 
does not prevent him from again voting for the old 
representatives at the next election, and he will do 
so, in many instances, time after time." f 

"The members of the Federal Council are re- 



* Winchester, p. 95. 

|SirF. O. Adams and C. D. Cunningham, "The Swiss Con- 
federation," pp. 41-42. 



30 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

eligible, and, in point of fact, the same individuals 
remain in office for a number of years, notwith- 
standing the existence of well-known differences 
among themselves, and between some of them and 
a majority in the Assembly. There have been, 
hitherto, only two instances of a member willing to 
serve not being reelected ; but from time to time 
some naturally resign, one for a more lucrative 
post, another to become the head of a diplomatic 
mission, another from a desire to retire into private 
life."* 

On the decorous and business-like proceedings of 
the Swiss legislative bodies, the same observers re- 
mark: 

" The debates are carried on with much decorum. 
There is seldom a noisy sitting, even when the 
most important subjects are being discussed ; inter- 
ruptions are few, and scenes such as unhappily have, 
of late, been painfully frequent in our House of 
Commons, do not exist. It is true that there are but 
forty-four members in one chamber and one hun- 
dred and forty-five in the other. But the sittings 
strike a spectator as being those of men of business, 
though the members are by no means devoid of 
eloquence." f 

In spite of the absence of any attraction in the 
way of high salaries, Switzerland is able to com- 
mand the services of its best and ablest citizens to a 
degree which we are unable to approach. The 
President of the Confederation is paid less than 

* Adams and Cunningham, pp. 58-59. 
f Adams and Cunningham, p. 51. 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 31 

two thousand seven hundred dollars a year, and the 
cost of the entire Executive Council does not reach 
seventeen thousand dollars. But this modest out- 
lay, which would hardly satisfy the bookkeepers 
of an American business house, secures for Switzer- 
land some of the best administrative skill in the 
world. " Democracies have been justly reproached," 
says a recent historian, " for the fact that their 
political offices are not always filled by men of 
recognized ability and unstained honor ; that the 
best talent of the nation after a while yields the 
political field to adventurers. This is not the case in 
Switzerland, under the purifying working of the 
referendum and initiative. Nowhere in the world 
are government places occupied by men so well 
fitted for the work to be performed." * 

Mr. J. W. Sullivan finds that " an impressive fact 
in Swiss politics to-day is its peace. Especially is 
this true of the contents and tone of the press. 
. . . On all sides, over the border from Switzer- 
land, political turmoil, with its rancor, personalities, 
false reports, hatreds, and corruptions, is endless. 
But in Switzerland, debate uniformly bears, not on 
men, but on measures." 

" Removals of federal office-holders in order to 
repay party workers are unheard of." 

" While both legislators and executives are elected 
for short terms, it is customary for the same men to 
serve in public capacities a long time. Though the 
people may recall their servants at brief intervals, 



*McCracken, " Rise of the Swiss Republic," p. 344. 



32 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

they almost invariably ask them to continue in serv- 
ice. Employes keep their places at will, during 
good behavior. This custom extends to higher 
offices rilled by appointment. One minister to Paris 
held the position for twenty -three years; one to 
Rome, for sixteen. Once elected to the Federal 
Executive Council, a public man may regard his 
office as a permanency. Of the Council of 1889, one 
member had served since 1863, another since 1866. 
Up to 1879 no sea -t i n the Council had ever become 
vacant, excepting through death or resignation." * 

All observers of Swiss politics are struck by the 
unwillingness of the voters to sanction sudden and 
radical changes. The referendum is the most 
powerful conservative force in the republic. The 
people are fearless in accepting innovations when 
they are once thoroughly convinced of their justice 
and necessity ; but rash and ill-considered projects 
have no chance of adoption. On the 3d of June, 
1894, after these words were written, the Swiss 
electorate voted upon a bill declaring that every 
man had a right to employment, and that if he 
could not get it elsewhere the State should furnish 
it. There is much to be said for such a proposition, 
and the average legislator would certainly regard it 
as eminently popular, whatever he might think 
about its wisdom, but the people of Switzerland 
rejected it by a vote of three hundred and eight 
thousand to seventy-five thousand. 

It is hardly necessary to dwell upon the contrast 

* J. W. Sullivan, " Direct Legislation by the Citizenship." 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 33 

to this state of affairs offered by our own conditions. 
When a leading New York journal complains that 
" Senators and representatives vote for the most 
dangerous measures, not because they believe they 
are sound or safe, but because they are afraid to 
oppose them, lest ignorance among their constituents 
should deprive them of their places in Congress," it 
is merely formulating a truism. 

Our political methods directly penalize independ- 
ence and honesty. As the only way of passing a 
given law is to elect legislators who will vote for it, 
and the only way of repealing it is to turn those 
legislators out and replace them by others who pro- 
fess different opinions, questions of legislation are 
inevitably and inextricably mixed with struggles for 
official place. From this it necessarily follows, that 
when a new issue comes up for discussion, our law- 
makers are under the stongest possible pressure to 
align themselves upon it, not according to their 
opinions of its merits, but according to what they 
believe to be the desires of their constituents ; and 
that when they have once committed themselves in 
this way, they are impelled to do all in their power 
to confirm their constituents in these supposed 
desires, which they themselves may, and often do, 
believe to be dangerous delusions. 

If they failed to read the prejudices of their dis- 
tricts aright in the first place, or if, having read 
them aright, and conformed to them, they allowed 
them to yield to increasing enlightenment, they 
would be in danger of losing their seats. Hence, 
insincerity has become so completely the rule in 



34 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

representative governments, that it has come to rank 
as a virtue; and a politician who is always true to 
his convictions endangers not only his place, but his 
reputation. That this is literally true may be seen 
in the most cursory observation of current politics 
in America or Europe. It is not to be doubted, for 
instance, that there is a considerable number of 
Democrats who honestly believe in protection, and 
of Republicans who honestly believe in free trade. 
They are expected, however, to smother their own 
opinions, and speak, and vote, in favor of measures 
which they believe to be wrong; and if they fail to do 
so they are impaled as traitors to their respective 
parties. In England, a Liberal may be elected to 
Parliament on a general pledge to favor home rule, 
and when he begins to legislate he may find that the 
particular home rule bill introduced by the leaders 
of his party is, in his judgment, so radically defective 
as to endanger the national safety. Nevertheless he 
must support it or be branded as a renegade. And, 
indeed, this enforcement of party discipline at the 
expense of personal independence, and even honesty, 
is a necessity under the present system, since it is 
the only way in which the people can retain any 
sort of control over legislation. But its effect in 
lowering the tone of public men is obvious. No 
politician can habitually defend measures of which 
he does not approve, for the sake of retaining his 
party standing and official place, without blunting 
his sense of right and wrong. This deterioration of 
character would be bad enough if it accomplished 
effective results; but it does not even do that. The 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 35 

system that produces it is, of all known devices, the 
clumsiest, slowest, and most uncertain method of 
reaching any desired end. It has kept the United 
States in a ferment over the tariff for a hundred 
years and has settled nothing yet. Discussion on 
this subject has hardly advanced an inch since the 
debates on the first Revenue Act of 1789. For 
nearly twenty years our parties have been trying to 
find out what the people want done about silver, in 
order that the politicians may know what opinions 
to hold themselves, and they are rather more at sea 
now than they were in 1875. 

The only logical theory of representative govern- 
ment is that the people select the wisest men among 
them to decide things which they do not know 
enough to decide for themselves. There is much to 
be said for such a theory as that. If it could be 
thoroughly and consistently carried out it would be 
quite likely to give us an able government — and a 
corrupt one. But it never is, and never can be, con- 
sistently carried out. Public opinion will insist on 
making itself felt, and the moment public opinion 
begins to interfere in the deliberations of a legisla- 
ture, we paralyze the judgment of the legislators 
without giving effective play to the desires of the 
people. A member of Congress, intent above all 
else upon saving his seat, hears ascending to him a 
confused roar of demands from which he must con- 
trive to extract the divine vox populi. Delegations 
of manufacturers and workingmen visit him to pro- 
test against the reform of the tariff. Mass meetings 
of his party insist upon immediate and radical 



36 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

reductions. Newspapers command him to work for 
high, low, medium, or no duties on fifty different 
articles produced or consumed in his district. Let- 
ters and telegrams pour in upon him urging him to 
support and oppose the free coinage of silver ; to 
favor the coinage of the seigniorage and its sale as old 
junk ; to promote the extension of the national bank- 
ing system and the substitution of State bank issues. 
He reads election returns, and is told that the result 
means that the people do not want tariff reform ; that 
they are incensed at the delay in giving it to them ; 
that they are enraged at Congress for its partiality to 
silver, and infuriated at the President for his devotion 
to gold. In the confusion, his own opinions, if he 
ever had any, utterly evaporate. 

If we abandon the principle of independent action 
by legislators trusted to do what is best without 
regard to public opinion, we must fall back on the 
theory that the members of a law-making body 
should be true representatives of the people, endeav- 
oring, to the best of their ability, to carry out the 
popular will, and held accountable by their con- 
stituents for the fidelity with which they execute 
their trust. This idea is clearly stated by Mr. 
Woodrow Wilson, one of the ablest advocates of the 
party system of legislation : 

" It should be desired that parties should act in 
distinct organizations, in accordance with avowed 
principles, under easily recognized leaders, in order 
that the voters might be able to declare by their 
ballots, not only their condemnation of any past 
policy, by withdrawing all support from the party 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 37 

responsible for it, but also, and particularly, their 
will as to trie future administration of the govern- 
ment, by bringing into power a party pledged to the 
adoption of an acceptable policy."* 

There is conspicuous here the assumption, which 
lies at the base of all the arguments in behalf of 
pure representative government, that a " party pol- 
icy " is a clearly defined unit, which may be unmis- 
takably condemned or approved by the voters. Yet 
the fact that it is nothing of the kind is one that lies 
on the very surface of our history. We have never 
had a national election whose returns made it pos- 
sible to determine just what policy, in the sense of 
a programme of legislation, the people wanted, 
although there have been a very few elections in 
which the popular will on some one overshadowing 
issue has been made tolerably clear. It was reason- 
ably plain in 1864, for instance, that the Northern 
people favored the prosecution of the war, but the 
election threw no light on their ideas upon recon- 
struction, emancipation, negro suffrage, or the 
finances. 

To put the " party-policy " idea to the test, let us 
suppose that I desire the reform of the tariff, and 
object to the further coinage of silver, the intensity 
of my wish for tariff reform being represented by 
one hundred, and that of my opposition to silver 
legislation being represented by ninety-nine. Sup- 
pose that my party passes a tariff bill satisfactory to 
me, and also passes a silver coinage bill. I am 
called upon to render judgment upon this "policy " 

*Woodrow Wilson, " Congressional Government," 



38 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

at the next election. I do violence to my convictions 
on the silver question for the sake of my preponder- 
ating convictions on the tariff ; but my dissatisfaction 
(ninety-nine) on one question must be deducted from 
my satisfaction (one hundred) on the other, leaving 
me a net satisfaction of only one instead of the one 
hundred and ninety-nine which I could have had if 
I had been allowed to vote on each measure by 
itself. 

But this is putting the case too favorably for the 
" policy " theory. In this example the voter does 
get some opportunity, however slight, to move in 
the direction of his preponderating desires. But 
the situation is not often so simple. Suppose, for 
instance, that my ideas of a national " policy," 
quantitatively expressed, run like this : 

Tariff reform ioo 

Opposition to silver coinage 99 

Economy in government 80 

Annexation of Hawaii 50 

Extension of civil-service laws 50 

Strong navy _ _ 40 

419 

Suppose that my party meets my wishes on tariff 
reform and economy (one hundred and eighty), and 
the other party on silver, Hawaii, and the navy (one 
hundred and eighty-nine), while neither takes a satis- 
factory position on the civil service (fifty). Then, if I 
vote for my party, I vote for a policy of which I 
approve of only one hundred and eighty parts and 
disapprove of two hundred and thirty-nine, and if 
I vote for the other I vote for a policy of which I 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 39 

approve of only one hundred and eighty-nine parts 
and disapprove of two hundred and thirty. Thus 
my net satisfaction is fifty-nine less than nothing in 
one case and forty-one less than nothing in the other. 
And, moreover, the situation is almost certain to be 
still further complicated by the nomination of can- 
didates whom I do not consider fit to hold office, but 
for whom I must vote as the only way of exerting 
an influence on the choice of any policy at all. If 
the people were allowed to vote on measures as well 
as on men, I could exert my full power at the polls 
in favor of the 'whole four hundred and nineteen 
points of the policy I desired to see carried out, and, 
in addition, I could vote for the candidate I thought 
best qualified for legislative business, regardless of 
his opinions on disputed political issues. 

A disadvantage of representative sovereignty, 
which has become unpleasantly conspicuous within 
the past year, is the power it gives to unscrupulous 
minorities. When one party holds either branch of 
a legislative body by a small majority, a few of its 
members can absolutely dictate its policy. A half 
dozen protectionist Democrats in the Senate held 
their party by the throat last spring and summer, 
and compelled it to adopt a tariff programme which 
five-sixths of its voters would have repudiated. In 
order to pass a tariff bill it was necessary to buy the 
vote of each of these Senators by concessions to the 
interests he particularly represented. If a measure 
had been framed by a majority of the Democrats in 
Congress for submission to the people, it would have 
been drawn on broad, logical lines, capable of public 



40 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

defense on general principles. As the object in 
view was to secure the votes, not of six or seven 
million citizens, but of six or seven Senators, the 
measure was logically and necessarily drawn in the 
interest of the Senators, rather than in that of the 
citizens. 

Another abuse that would be extirpated by direct 
legislation is the practice of log-rolling. An average 
legislative body will pass half a dozen bad measures 
of which no one, taken separately, would have 
strength enough even to gain consideration. The 
advocates of an unnecessary insane asylum at Goshen 
combine with the champions of a superfluous nor- 
mal school at Podunk, and with the help of the 
friends of a useless reformatory at Wayback, a 
legislative majority is secured for a combined raid 
on the State Treasury. No such combination would 
be possible in a popular vote, where each proposition 
would have to stand on its own merits, and if such a 
poll could be demanded, most of the schemes whose 
success depends upon vote-trading in legislatures 
would never be heard of. 

But the most serious evil connected with the 
delegation of the uncontrolled law-making power 
to a limited number of representatives still remains 
to be considered. It is the leverage given to corrup- 
tion. That every man has his price is too hard a 
saying, but that the great majority of men have 
their price is the simple truth. When votes are 
quoted at two dollars apiece, from five to ten per 
cent of the voters of a State can be bought. Ten 
dollars apiece would buy, perhaps, twenty per cent, 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 41 

a hundred dollars apiece would buy fifty per cent ; 
and if the price were raised to a hundred thou- 
sand dollars each, it is doubtful whether one voter 
out of twenty in any State of the Union could resist 
the temptation. Now, it often happens that the 
enactment or defeat of certain legislation is import- 
ant enough to rich corporations to make it worth 
their while to offer a hundred thousand dollars 
each, if necessary, for the . assistance of a few 
members of Congress or of a State Legislature, 
but it would be impossible for any corporation to 
offer one hundred dollars apiece to a majority of the 
voters of the United States, and practically impos- 
sible to make such an offer to the majority of the 
voters of an average State. There are other ways, 
too, in which the private interests of legislators are 
made to influence their public action. The Con- 
gressional silver pool, at the time of the passage of 
the Sherman law of 1 890, and the senatorial specula- 
tion in sugar stock during the manipulation of the 
Wilson tariff bill in the Finance Committee, became 
national scandals. Every great railroad whose in- 
terests are affected by legislation has its attorneys in 
Congress or in the State Legislatures. The presi- 
dents and chief stockholders of important corpora- 
tions have held seats in the Senate, and openly 
spoken and voted in behalf of their private interests, 
without betraying a thought of impropriety. 

It is said that the true remedy for these evils is 
to elect good men to office. The advocates of this 
happy and original idea will have everything their 
own way when they show us two things: First, 



42 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

how to insure the election of good men, and, second, 
how to keep them good after they are elected. It is 
useless to expect representatives to be very much 
better than the people they represent. It is as much 
as we can reasonably look for if they are no worse. 
A system of government whose satisfactory opera- 
tion requires the continual election of archangels to 
office is not a practicable working system. To have 
a really stable fabric of government, we must base 
it upon enlightened self-interest. As Mill puts it : 
" The ideally perfect constitution of a public office 
is that in which the interest of the functionary is 
entirely coincident with his duty." Now the self- 
interest of the average man, acting as one of the 
mass of voters, lies in the direction of good and 
honest government. It is worth more to him to 
have cheap sugar, pure water, and safe, rapid, and 
comfortable transportation, than to accept fifty 
cents from the sugar trust, a dollar from a water 
company, and two dollars from a railroad to be 
cheated, poisoned, jostled, and belated, with the 
prospect of being eventually flattened out or burned 
alive in a wreck. But the average man in the place 
of a legislator would certainly succumb to the same 
influences that corrupt the politician. It is the con- 
centration of temptation that makes the difference. 
The pressure that would be easily resisted when 
spread over the whole community becomes crushing 
when converged upon one point. And this concen- 
tration exists simply because the action of the 
legislative body is final. If the people could always 
demand the right to pass upon the decisions of their 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 43 

representatives, those decisions would no longer have 
a commercial value ; the lobby would disappear, and 
legislative bodies would once more become delibera- 
tive assemblies in which it would be a pleasure for 
men of intelligence and conscience to sit, and in 
which it would be to the interest of all the members 
to do the best possible work. 

An appreciation of the unfitness of legislative 
bodies to exercise unlimited power has led to a 
growing practice in this country of applying the 
referendum in its least scientific and most dan- 
gerous form. Deprived of the right to express their 
will, in case of need, in an orderly way, in the regu- 
lar channels of legislation, the people have resorted 
to the objectionable devise of law-making by consti- 
tutional amendment. In many States the distinction 
between a constitution and a code has been almost 
wiped out. To check unfaithful legislatures, the 
ordinary course of law-making has been so hedged 
about with minute restrictions that a plausible case 
of unconstitutionality can be made out against any 
statute distasteful to powerful interests. In Califor- 
nia as many as ten constitutional amendments are 
submitted to the people by a single legislature, and 
an edition of the constitution five years old is as use- 
less for instruction in the actual state of the funda- 
mental law as a five-year-old almanac. A constitution 
ought to contain nothing but a frame of government 
and the necessary guaranties of individual liberty 
and property against the excesses of a majority. 
To protect the majority against betrayal by its own 
servants is no part of the duty of an organic law. 



44 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

The majority ought to have the power to do that at 
all times for itself. If that power were secured to 
it, our State constitutions could be cleared of all 
the undergrowth of petty restrictions that now 
encumbers them, and the noble simplicity of the 
national constitution could be imitated everywhere. 

It may be said that the people are not qualified to 
frame the details of legislation. Undoubtedly they 
are not, and neither is a numerous representative 
body. The critics of Congress and of our State 
legislatures can hardly find words to describe the 
botch-work with which our statute books are annually 
disfigured. Even in England, where the control of 
Parliament by the Cabinet secures a certain degree 
of unity in legislation, things are not much better. 
On this point Mill remarks : 

" Any government fit for a high state of civiliza- 
tion would have, as one of its fundamental elements, 
a small body not exceeding in number the members 
of a cabinet, who should act as a commission of 
legislation, having for its appointed office to make 
all laws. * * * No one would wish that this 
body should of itself have any power of enacting 
laws ; the commission would only embody the 
element of intelligence in their construction ; Parlia- 
ment would represent that of will. No measure 
would become a law until expressly sanctioned by 
Parliament ; and Parliament, or either house, would 
have the power, not only of rejecting, but of sending 
back a bill to the commission for reconsideration 
and improvement." 

Now this device would work precisely as well in 



DIRECT LEGISLATION. 45 

the preparation of laws to be submitted to the 
people, as in that of laws to be submitted to a legis- 
lative body. If Parliament or Congress is incapable 
of constructing or amending bills intelligently, if 
its proper function is merely to consider measures 
submitted to it by an expert commission, to say 
"yes" or "no," or to send them back for amend- 
ment, its duties are quite within the capacity of the 
mass of the voters. Of course, the public could not 
take time enough to consider all the bills that must 
be passed upon by a legislative body in the course 
of a year, but those supreme issues which absorb 
the popular mind, which divide parties, and with 
reference to which legislators profess to try to fol- 
low public opinion, could be quite as easily disposed 
of by direct vote of the people as by the circuitous 
and clumsy method of electing representatives to 
guess at what the people want. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF REPRESENTATION. 

Notwithstanding the inefficiency, confusion, and 
corruption that have flowed from the abuse of the 
representative principle, the fact remains that the 
device of representation in its proper place is an 
indispensable aid to good government. The people 
can safely intrust to a limited body the ordinary 
work of legislation. The one thing which they can 
not safely delegate to anybody, even for a limited 
term, is the sovereign power. They may never have 
occasion to review the work of their representatives^ 
but unless they retain the legal right to do so they 
will inevitably find their interests betrayed. The 
quality of finality is what makes the acts of a legis- 
lature worth buying. It is that which makes such 
scenes as this the inevitable prelude to the close of 
every session of a national or State law-making 
body. 

" Albany, April 27th. — Sparks flew in both houses 
of the Legislature just before final adjournment to- 
day. For an hour the Senate was tied up on the 
Huckleberry Railway bill, owing to the filibustering 
tactics of the Democrats, who seemed to be able to do 
what they pleased. 

"In the Assembly there were several scenes of 
turbulence. Ex-Speaker — , the Democratic leader, 

(46) 



THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF REPRESENTATION. 47 

assisted by John A. — of Kings, Charles C. — of 
New York, and one-half of the Democratic minority, 
took possession of the well, on the watch for ' sneak ' 
bills, and their vociferous objections and demands to 
have every bill of a questionable character read kept 
the House in an uproar which the pounding of the 
gavel could not quiet. Had it not been for these 
watchful and energetic young men, Mr. — of Fulton 
and Hamilton, would have ' sneaked ' through an 
innocent-looking measure that contained hidden in 
one page a clause to repeal section 57 of the general 
insurance law, which would have destroyed the 
existence of the American Lloyds." 

If a " sneak bill" could be challenged, after the 
adjournment of a legislature, and compelled to run 
the gauntlet of a popular vote, it would not be intro- 
duced. The people would never be compelled to 
consider a palpably dishonest measure. The mere 
fact that a constitutional right of appeal to the pells 
existed would purify legislation at its source. 
A business man with an efficient manager may be 
so well served as never to find it necessary to inter- 
fere with his subordinate's decisions. But he always 
is careful to retain the power of interfering if neces- 
sary. If his confidence in his manager's fidelity 
and ability led him to intrust to him absolute 
authority for two years to make contracts, buy and 
sell stock, and incur debts without any right of 
review on his own part, his business acquaintances 
would suggest that what he needed was not so much 
a manager as a guardian. And yet that is precisely 
what the people do in their political capacity, with- 



48 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

out even the excuse that their hired managers are 
able and honest. On . the contrary, the universal 
complaint is that legislators are inefficient, ignorant, 
and corrupt, in spite of which we grant them powers 
which it would be unsafe to intrust to assemblies of 
sages and saints. 

The true object of representation is the conven- 
ient dispatch of business. The great bulk of the 
laws required by a State or the nation may properly 
be disposed of by representative bodies, provided 
always that the people retain the right of reviewing 
the decisions of the legislators whenever they think 
proper. It is not probable that the national acts so 
reviewed would average more than one a year. 
Nobody would wish to submit to popular vote an 
ordinary appropriation bill, or a bill for the estab- 
lishment of a zoological park in the District of 
Columbia. It is only those great measures that 
touch the interests and arouse the passions of a 
whole people, or which affect vast combinations of 
capital so closely as to make corruption inevitable if 
they are disposed of by a small body, that need to 
be referred to the decision of the ultimate sovereign. 
And it is these very measures that now fill our legis- 
lative bodies with ignorant and unscrupulous mem- 
bers, attracted by the opportunities for profit in 
them, and which repel the men whose character 
and talents ought to be at the service of the com- 
munity, but who do not care to risk their reputa- 
tions by mingling in contests from which no man's 
name emerges unscathed. 

There is no subject more important to the ulti- 



THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF REPRESENTATION. 49 

mate welfare of this country than that of the scien- 
tific care of forests. It is one that requires much 
expert investigation and studious attention to de- 
tails. It is one of those questions which could be 
dealt with to the best advantage by small represent- 
ative bodies, but Congress and the State legisla- 
tures have been so deeply absorbed in interminable 
struggles over issues, each of which should have 
been settled by a single vote at the polls, that they 
have hardly had time to give it a thought. Inter- 
national copyright, marriage and divorce laws, the 
promotion of scientific research, the improvement of 
the patent system, the development of irrigation, 
the systematic extension of water transportation, 
the elevation of Government art and architecture, 
the increase in the efficiency of the postal service, 
and the investigation of the best means of relieving 
poverty, checking vagrancy, and preventing crime, 
are a few out of hundreds of subjects which might 
profitably engage the attention of our law-making 
bodies. But our legislators seldom have time to 
think of such things. It is safe to say that within 
the past twenty years nine-tenths of the time of 
Congress not spent in the consideration of the 
regular appropriation bills has been devoted to the 
five subjects of the tariff, the currency, the South, 
pensions, and private claims. Of these, the last 
should not have come before Congress at all, except 
for the formal confirmation, in bulk, of the decrees 
of another tribunal. The rest were proper subjects 
for decision by popular vote. A commission of 
eminent protectionists should have drawn up a 

4 



50 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

symmetrical protective tariff ; another commission of 
well-known free-traders should have framed a scien- 
tific tariff for revenue, and after full public discus- 
sion the people should have been allowed to choose 
between them. That would have settled the matter 
on a logical basis without waste of time. As it is, 
the majority of the Senate this year spent five 
months in the secret manipulation of a tariff bill, 
not in order to study and discuss its effects upon 
industry, commerce, and the public revenues, but to 
see how many favors would have to be given to 
each of a number of Senators for his vote. What 
these Senators needed was to be protected from 
themselves. A tariff decision by the people would 
have set them free for useful legislative work of a 
kind which the people would not be competent to 
perform. 

So with the currency. Doubtless the question of 
monetary standards is too recondite to be fully under- 
stood by the average voter, but the average voter 
who is honestly trying to discover the truth is at 
least more likely to reach a sensible conclusion than 
the Congressman who carefully avoids the truth if 
it runs counter to his interpretation of the ignorant 
prejudices of his constituents. No harmonious 
currency policy adopted twenty years ago, even if 
wrong in theory, would have been likely to do the 
damage that has been wrought by the unspeakable 
botch- work of insincere compromises perpetrated by 
politicians playing for their seats. The Massachu- 
setts Railroad Commission, although it has no power 
to enforce its decisions, exerts more influence and 



THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF REPRESENTATION. 51 

commands more respect than the commissions in 
other States whose laws invest them with autocratic 
authority. The reason is obvious. In Massachusetts, 
the commission, acting only through reason, must 
make the wisdom of its recommendations clear to 
the people, the Legislature, and the railroads. It 
can not substitute brute force for argument. Having 
no powers of oppression the corporations do not feel 
obliged to exert themselves to fill it with their tools, 
and men of high standing can serve in it without 
endangering their reputations. Similar considera- 
tions would improve the quality and increase the 
influence of legislative bodies if they were deprived 
of the dangerous gift of unchecked power. They 
could be safely trusted then to deal with a much 
wider range of subjects than now. Men of ability 
and character would be glad to join them, and take 
part in the discussion of the social, industrial, 
economic, scientific, and artistic questions with 
which they could occupy themselves, when there 
was no longer any danger of becoming involved in 
a scandal over the grant of a franchise or the pas- 
sage of a law to relieve a railroad of its taxes. 

The adoption of an important policy is a matter 
that should usually be decided by the people, but 
the detailed legislation needed to provide for its 
execution is properly the work of the people' s rep- 
resentatives. In some cases, indeed, the people 
themselves should attend even to the details. A 
tariff bill, for instance, which, as usually framed, 
contains a scandal in every line, should be drawn up 
by a few experts of national reputation and voted 



52 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

upon as a whole. But, in general, the citizens can 
safely confine themselves to the broad outlines of 
legislation. To fill in the lights and shadows in the 
most effective way is the true function of represen- 
tation. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE REFERENDUM AND THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY. 

Thus far we have considered the referendum in 
its primitive form, as applied in Switzerland, and, 
for a few specific purposes, in the United States. 
In this form it is subject to certain disadvantages — 
not great enough, indeed, to overbalance its supreme 
merits, but sufficiently serious to give a standing- 
ground for the opposition of conservatives reluc- 
tant to make any change in established institutions. 
If often used it is expensive. Our elections are 
conducted on a costly plan. The fees of judges, 
inspectors, and clerks, rent of booths, printing of 
ballots, advertising election proclamations, publica- 
tion of registers, and other necessary outlays, make 
up a total load of expense which no community likes 
to incur any oftener than necessary. More important 
still is the fact that so large a proportion of the total 
vote is cast without any clear understanding of the 
questions to be decided. If proposed laws were sub- 
mitted to popular vote, they would be published in 
the newspapers, but that would not imply that they 
would be generally read — still less understood. 
Undoubtedly thousand of voters would either cast 
their ballots in entire ignorance of the subjects at 
issue, or would neglect to cast them at all. And 
those who thought they were voting intelligently 

(53) 



54 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

would in many cases be simply carrying out the 
policy of certain newspapers, without ever having 
considered the other side. Moreover, there are com- 
plications in the way of securing and verifying 
signatures to petitions for the referendum. Lastly, 
a vote on laws held simultaneously with a general 
election for officers would add to the already too 
great confusion in the mind of the voter, while if it 
were held at a different time there would be another 
election day, with its inevitable inconvenience and 
disorganization of business. 

All these difficulties would be completely obviated 
by the system of popular assemblies described in the 
first chapter. The people being already organized 
and in the habit of meeting at convenient times, 
there would be no necessity for elaborate and expen- 
sive arrangements for recording their opinions. 
Suppose, for instance, that the question were whether 
the State taxes on improvements and personal prop- 
erty should be abolished. The people would be 
called upon to vote in their assemblies on the night 
of a regular monthly meeting. At the appointed 
time each assembly would gather in its hall. The 
advocates and opponents of the proposition would 
advance their respective arguments. When the 
discussion had proceeded far enough, a vote would 
be taken. Every voter would have at least some 
understanding of the question at issue, and the 
understanding would be fresh — not the mere dried- 
up impressions of almost forgotten readings. In all 
probability, too, the matter would have been fully 
discussed at previous meetings as well as in the 



REFERENDUM AND POPULAR ASSEMBLY. 55 

press in the intervals, so that the final debate would 
be merely the summing up of arguments already 
familiar. The vote would involve no more expense 
than the cost of a quire of white paper and a pad 
of stamping ink. It would be completed in an hour, 
and counted in the presence of the meeting in ten 
minutes more. 

All the difficulty in deciding what measures should 
be submitted to vote would be obviated. There would 
be no need of collecting and verifying names for 
petitions. A certain number of assemblies could 
have the right, at any time, to demand the referen- 
dum on any bill. It could be provided, if thought 
advisable, that if the vote for this proposition in the 
assemblies reached a certain figure, the measure 
should be submitted even if its advocates were in a 
minority in each assembly, but this would be a 
superfluous precaution, since any measure whose 
friends commanded a majority in the nation or 
State would necessarily have a majority in a suffi- 
cient number of assemblies to secure its submission. 
The necessity of obtaining the affirmative action of 
these assemblies in advance would be a useful 
check upon the activity of agitators, who might 
otherwise be continually disturbing the people with 
calls to vote upon propositions that had no chance 
of success. 

Mill devotes a chapter to the elaboration of the 
thesis : " Representative Government the Ideally 
Best Policy," and every argument in it is designed 
to show the superiority of democracy over monarchy 
or aristocracy. The capital thus accumulated for 



56 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

popular rule is transferred to the rule of representa- 
tive bodies with an easy celerity that reminds the 
startled observer of Heller's invisible transfer of a 
live rabbit from his sleeve to a hat. " From these 
accumulated considerations," the chapter concludes, 
" it is evident that the only government which can 
fully satisfy all the exigencies of the social state is 
one in which the whole people participate ; that any 
participation, even in the smallest public function, 
is useful ; that the participation should be every- 
where as great as the general degree of improvement 
of the community will allow ; and that nothing less 
can be ultimately desirable than the admission of all 
to a share in the sovereign power of the State. But 
since all can not, in a community exceeding a single 
small town, participate personally in any but some 
very minor portions of the public business, it follows 
that the ideal type of a perfect government must be 
the representative." 

It is evident that this conclusion is anything but 
warranted by the premises. It has been shown in 
Switzerland and elsewhere that it is quite possible 
for all to participate in much more than " minor 
portions of the public business," even when that 
participation is facilitated by no special organization, 
and the system of local assemblies would enable a 
nation of any size to act as conveniently as a small 
community, without some of its most conspicuous 
dangers. The chief peril of democracy in the 
ancient and mediaeval city states was the liability to 
sudden tumults, or inconsiderate decisions. A 
plausible demagogue, getting the ear of the popular 



REFERENDUM AND POPULAR ASSEMBLY. 57 

assembly, could induce it to take action which it 
regretted as soon as it had time for sober thought. 
Athens voted on one day to massacre the men of 
Mitylene, and on the next revoked the sentence. In 
this country, under the plan proposed, a national 
question important enough to be submitted to the 
people would be voted upon simultaneously in thirty 
thousand different assemblies. In each there would 
be likely to be men who could offer fair statements 
of the opposing arguments, but no Cleon could make 
his voice reach far enough to have any dangerous 
influence on the total result. The division of the 
voting population into small bodies would be, not a 
mere physical necessity, but a thing advantageous 
in itself. 

Montesquieu said : " The great advantage of rep- 
resentatives is that they are capable of discussing 
affairs. The people are not at all fitted for this, 
which forms one of the chief inconveniences of 
democracy." Under the plan proposed the people 
would discuss affairs. They do it now, but for the 
most part they do it ignorantly. They meet their 
friends on street corners, or in saloons, or churches, 
or lodge-rooms, and casually exchange prejudices 
based on carelessly written, hastily read, and half- 
understood newspaper articles. They come together 
in political meetings, where all are of one way of 
thinking, and listen to plausible speakers who are 
under no obligation to consider facts or reason as 
long as they flatter the prepossessions of their hear- 
ers and make things warm for the enemy. In a 
popular assembly representing all classes and all 



58 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

factions, and invested with a share of sovereign 
power, there would be discussions seriously deserv- 
ing the name. The stump-speaker would not revel 
in misrepresentations with impunity, because his 
opponents would be there to expose him. It is 
likely that the debates in such an assembly would 
be quite equal, in enlightening effect, to those in 
Congress, for what they might lack in ability they 
would make up in sincerity. Congressional discus- 
sions to a great extent are sham battles. The par- 
ticipants are not trying to convince each other or to 
exert any influence upon the determination of the 
question at issue, but to impress their constituents. 
This is why the reader of the Congressional Record 
is so often exasperated at seeing fallacies and mis- 
statements repeated and reiterated after one of the 
speakers has so manifestly demolished them that 
nobody has attempted to answer his arguments. He 
wonders whether the debaters can be so densely 
stupid as not to understand the refutation that is so 
luminously clear to an average intelligence. Noth- 
ing of the kind. They are merely counting on the 
fact that they can have their fallacies printed and 
circulated in their districts, while their constituents 
will probably never see the refutation. It is this that 
makes Congressional debates so unsatisfactory as a 
means of arriving at truth. They purport to be dis- 
cussions when they are really symposia of unrelated 
stump-speeches. In the. popular assemblies there 
would be none of this double purpose. Having no 
constituents, the speakers would attempt to influence 
nobody beyond their immediate hearers. Those 



REFERENDUM AND POPULAR ASSEMBLY. 59 

hearers would have to be convinced, in the very 
presence of the advocates of opposing opinions, and 
every argument advanced would have to be met on 
the spot by a counter-argument appealing to the 
reason and sense of fairness of the audience. The 
conclusion reached, whatever it might be, would be 
the honest judgment of the assembly on the merits 
of the conflicting arguments, and not a prearranged 
verdict based on ulterior considerations. And, as 
truth is single, and exists in itself, while error is 
multifarious and exists only in the minds of those 
who hold it, it is likely that the truth would find its 
way into all the assemblies, while fallacies would be 
limited in range. It would certainly be remarkable 
if, after full and candid discussion, the same errors 
should commend themselves to the reason of a 
majority of the voters in thirty thousand independent 
meetings, composed of citizens of all classes, parties, 
and habits of thought. It will hardly be main- 
tained that such a thing would be as probable as the 
control of a single legislative body by prejudice, 
carelessness, or sinister influences. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 

Since the time of Montesquieu, it has been cus- 
tomary to treat the powers of government as falling 
naturally into three branches, legislative, executive, 
and judicial. As a convenient working arrange- 
ment this division is satisfactory, but not as a funda- 
mental principle. In that sense there are properly 
only two divisions — the legislative-executive, or 
political, on one side, and the judicial on the other. 
The theory that the branches of government should 
be co-ordinate and independent is properly appli- 
cable only to these two — it does not apply to the 
legislative and executive subdivisions of the polit- 
ical branch in their relations with each other. The 
duty of the judiciary is that of measuring the rights 
of citizens by an existing standard — that of the 
laws and constitutional guaranties in force at the 
time when the acts to be judged were to be per- 
formed. This duty necessarily lies outside of the 
discretionary powers of a legislature, and can not be 
properly fulfilled if confused with them. But there 
is no such broad distinction between the legislative 
and executive powers. The executive is the hand 
of the legislature, carrying out whatever that 
decrees. The power of making laws necessarily 
implies the power of procuring their execution. 

(60) 



THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 61 

Without that power a legislature is a mere debating 
society. But a numerous assembly is not fit for the 
practical work of carrying out its own decrees, and, 
therefore, as a simple matter of convenience, the 
duty of execution is wisely intrusted to officials 
employed for that express purpose. These officials 
should properly be the servants of the legislature, 
not its independent associates. In just so far as 
they are independent they weaken the energy of 
government, divide responsibility and impart con- 
fusion where there should be unity and simplicity. 

Nevertheless, there are good reasons for the inde- 
pendence of the executive in the American system 
of government, the chief of which is that our legis- 
lative bodies are not trustworthy. As a rule they 
perform even their own work so ill that, so far from 
wishing them to control the executive, the people 
prefer an executive strong enough to guide, and, if 
need be, coerce the legislature. An Andrew Jack- 
son is always sure of popularity. Congress has no 
policy of its own, and even when elected under an 
express mandate to carry out some policy demanded 
by the people it muddles and blunders away its time, 
wanders off into mischievous byways, and accom- 
plishes anything at all only under the spur of con- 
tinual executive and journalistic admonitions. State 
and city legislatures are still more imbecile and 
infinitely more corrupt. The idea of making presi- 
dents, governors, and mayors the servants of con- 
gresses, legislatures and common councils, as at 
present constituted, is utterly out of the question. 

That the executive power should be subordinate 



62 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

to the legislative by no means implies that the legis- 
lative body should take the lead and leave the 
executive to follow in its wake. The guide of an 
exploring expedition is subordinate to the travelers 
to whom he shows the way. It would be well for the 
executive to carry its leadership of the legislature 
to a much greater extent than is ever seen in Amer- 
ica. It should formulate policies, draw up bills, and 
urge their enactment. Only there should be no pos- 
sibility of a clash between the two powers. In case 
of a disagreement, the will of the legislature should 
always prevail, unless overruled by the people. 

To insure the necessary unity in the political 
branch of the government without incurring the 
evils of legislative mob-rule on the one hand, or of 
a perpetually belligerent party executive of the 
English type on the other, six things are necessary. 

i . Every member of the legislative body must be 
individually responsible to his constituents, and 
subject to recall at any time. 

2. The people at large must have the right at any 
time of passing at the polls upon anything done or 
left undone by the legislature. 

3. The practical experience gained in administra- 
tion must be made available for use in legislation 
by giving the heads of executive departments seats 
in the legislative body, and allowing their proposals 
for improvements in the laws affecting their depart- 
ments to take precedence over those of ordinary 
members. 

4. The financial budget, including all receipts and 
expenditures, must be treated as a whole, and 



THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 63 

framed with the active cooperation of the treasury 
officials. 

5. The executive must have unlimited powers of 
suggestion and initiative, but no power of veto. It 
must be given every facility for guiding legislation, 
but none for creating a deadlock. 

6. The appointment and removal of subordinate 
executive officials must be entirely free from legis- 
lative interference, but the supreme executive head 
must be subject to removal by a sufficiently large 
legislative majority — two-thirds, for instance — on 
due notice, giving the people time to interfere. 

The continuous responsibility of the individual 
legislator to his constituents — not an intermittent 
responsibility, reaching a crisis every two, four, or 
six years, but one effective at every moment of his 
career — would rank with the referendum as a force 
for the maintenance of a high standard of represent- 
ation. The practice of ceding uncontrolled power 
for a term of years corrupts even good men — that 
of keeping the representative always within reach 
would secure good service even from bad ones. 
The organization of the voters in popular assemblies 
would enable this control to be exercised with the 
utmost facility. In States of moderate size one 
assembly could elect a member of the legislature,' 
and in any city at present existing in America one 
would be a sufficient constituency for a member of 
the common council. In such cases the control of 
the representative would be simplicity itself. If he 
were credibly accused of selling his vote to a corpo- 
ration, or of speculating in a stock affected by his 



64 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

official action, lie would be summoned before his 
assembly to explain. If his explanation appeared 
unsatisfactory his credentials would be revoked, and 
another representative would be elected. In the 
largest States it would be necessary for two or 
three assemblies to combine for the election of a 
member of the legislature, but the procedure in this 
case would be almost as simple as in the other. In 
any assembly any voter dissatisfied with the course 
of his representative could move that he be called 
upon for a defense. If the motion prevailed, the 
defense would be presented to all the assemblies 
of the district, and they would all vote upon its 
acceptance. 

In the case of a member of Congress, when a hun- 
dred assemblies might form the constituency, the 
proceedings would be a little less summary, but 
equally effective. Printed instead of oral explana- 
tions could be furnished, although the representative 
should have the right to appear in person before any 
assembly if he desired. To prevent annoyance from 
frivolous complaints it could be provided that no vote 
on the question of recall should be taken except on 
demand of ten assemblies, and that the representa- 
tive should not be compelled to submit to the ordeal 
twice within six months. 

This unbroken control of the representatives by 
the constituencies would dispense with the necessity 
for periodical elections. The suggestion of Mr. Stick- 
ney that members of legislative bodies should hold 
office as long as their conduct satisfied their fellow 
members is entirely impracticable, and would be 



THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 65 

open to obvious objections if it were not, but a 
tenure dependent on the will of the constituency 
would be both practicable and desirable. Under 
such a system there would be no general election 
day, and no fixed term of office. When there was a 
vacancy from any district the people would elect a 
man to fill it. As long as he gave satisfaction he 
would not be disturbed. He would be free to devote 
himself to the business of legislation without the 
necessity of preparing to meet an approaching 
political revolution. If he ceased to do good work 
his constituents would recall him and elect some- 
body else in his place. There would be no disturb- 
ance of business, no general political upheaval, no 
sudden and violent changes of policy, no wholesale 
substitution of apprentices for experienced legis- 
lators. The legislative body would maintain its 
continuous existence, and the methods of conducting 
business would not have to be relearned at every 
session. 

The advantages of direct legislation by the people 
have already been fully discussed. It is sufficient 
to point out here the effect of the referendum and 
initiative upon the relations between the legislative 
and executive branches of the government. With 
the right reserved to the people to pass final judg- 
ment upon any measures deeply affecting their 
interests, all occasion for clashes between law- 
makers and administrators would disappear. The 
wrestle between President Cleveland and the Senate 
over the silver question, with its accompanying 
scandals in the distribution of patronage, would 



66 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

have been impossible if the whole subject could 
have been referred to a popular vote. It was be- 
cause Congress and the President were jointly in 
complete possession of the sovereign power that they 
wrangled over it like dogs over a bone. They 
would not have quarreled over the right way to 
frame a measure for submission to the people. If 
this appeal were always open in the last resort, 
Congress would always be willing to listen respect- 
fully to the suggestions of the President, accepting 
them as the advice of an expert counselor, and not 
as the dictation of a rival power. 

The official who has to execute a law has better 
opportunities than anybody else for knowing how it 
works and what changes in it are desirable. It is 
most important that this experience should be 
utilized by the legislative body to the fullest extent. 
To make the head of a department dependent upon 
the good-will of some private member for the intro- 
duction of a needed bill, upon the courtesy of a 
committee for a perfunctory hearing upon it, and 
upon the indifferent services of half-instructed 
friends for its advocacy upon the floor, is to sacrifice 
knowledge to ignorance and force the government 
needlessly to put up with poor work when it could 
have good. In a legislative body not dominated by 
party passion or selfish interests, thorough knowl- 
edge will always take the lead. Mere eloquence 
counts for little, but a man who knows exactly what 
he is talking about, and who can give a candid and 
satisfactory answer to every question propounded, 
can generally carry his point. This expert knowl- 



THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 67 

edge, of course, is possessed by each official only with 
regard to his own department. The very fact that 
the Secretary of War has given such conscientious 
attention to his own work as to enable him to speak 
with authority upon it, disqualifies him from speak- 
ing with similar, or any, authority upon the work of 
the Secretary of the Treasury. This would be the 
sufficient condemnation, if there were no other, of 
the English system of cabinet solidarity, under 
which fifteen gentlemen assume a joint responsi- 
bility for things which only one of them knows any- 
thing about. The presence of heads of departments 
in the legislative body, each speaking for his own 
department, would enable each branch of the gov- 
ernment to exert its proper influence on the other. 
The executive officials could initiate legislation, and 
the legislator could hold the officials to the proper 
performance of their duty. Any reported delin- 
quency in a department could be brought at once to 
the test of a series of questions propounded to the 
head of that department on the floor. These ques- 
tions could not be evaded, and unsatisfactory replies, 
often repeated, would inevitably lead to a change of 
officials. That executive bills should have prece- 
dence over those introduced by private members is 
a necessary corollary from the considerations that 
make it desirable to give the heads of departments 
seats in the legislative body. As these officers pos- 
sess peculiar knowledge of the needs of their 
departments, it is to be presumed that the measures 
they propose are more urgent than those suggested 
by others. Of course, all the advantages to be gained 



68 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

from the presence of department chiefs in the legis- 
lative bodies could be secured without giving them 
votes. 

The unity of the budget is a principle so essential 
to anything like scientific, or even decent, finance 
that nothing but inexhaustible wealth has enabled 
this country to get along without it. Our national 
financial system appears deliberately designed for 
the encouragement of extravagance. The taxes are 
fixed for an indefinite period, and the rates are 
based to a great extent on considerations independ- 
ent of the needs of the Government. The general 
appropriations are under the control of eight dif- 
ferent committees of the House and two of the 
Senate, and special appropriations for particular pur- 
poses may be proposed by any member of either 
branch and reported by any committee. Any appro- 
priation may be amended to any extent by either 
house, and any committee may report bills involving 
permanent expenditures on an unlimited scale. Each 
committee feels bound in honor to secure as large 
appropriations as possible for the subjects within its 
own jurisdiction, and feels under no obligation to 
exert itself toward maintaining a balance between 
the total receipts and expenditures of the govern- 
ment. A single agency, having control of the whole 
subject of finance, and including the Secretary of 
the Treasury in its membership, would probably 
save more than the entire cost of the army and navy 
every year. 

If law-making is to be carried on by the har- 
monious cooperation of the legislative and execu- 



THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 69 

tive powers, there is obviously no room for an 
executive veto. Under the system suggested the 
functions of the executive would be advisory, not 
dictatorial. If, after hearing all the arguments the 
administrative officials had to offer, the legislature 
still persisted in going wrong, the proper and all- 
sufficient substitute for a veto would be an appeal 
to the people. The referendum would constitute a 
check on reckless legislation more effective than 
any executive interference could possibly be, and 
the voters would be restrained by no timidity in its 
application. 

As regards the sixth point, I must .renew the 
expression of my obligations to Mr. Stickney, whose 
exposition of this branch of the subject leaves 
hardly anything to be desired. The weakest point 
in Mr. Stickney 's scheme of government is the 
omnipotence and irresponsibility of his legislative 
assemblies. It is this which would cause the whole 
fabric to break down if it could ever be brought to 
trial among a people of democratic traditions, 
which would be an impossibility in itself. But 
concerning the constitution and the responsibility 
of the executive, the plan is very nearly perfect, and 
it accords, in most essential respects, with the views 
that are becoming generally held by political 
thinkers. It establishes an unbroken chain of 
responsibility from the lowest executive official to 
the legislature. Each chief of a bureau should be 
personally responsible for the management of that 
bureau. That he may not be able to lay the blame 
for mismanagement on incapable or corrupt sub- 



70 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

ordinates, he must have the power of removing any 
who fail to do good work. Similarly, every head of 
a department must be responsible for the condition 
of that department. He must obtain certain results 
from every bureau, and the instrument by which he 
must enforce them is the power of appointment and 
removal of the bureau chiefs. The supreme execu- 
tive head, in his turn, must be responsible for the 
efficiency of the government in every department, 
and he must change the head of any department 
that appears to be badly managed. Thus far we 
are not very remote from the theory, although con- 
siderably removed from the practice, of our present 
system of national administration. But when we 
come to the responsibility of the chief executive, 
we find something lacking. We do not theoretically 
accept the English principle that the king can do no 
wrong. We hold that the President is responsible, 
but we have omitted to provide any means of 
enforcing that responsibility. We can refuse to 
reelect him at the end of his four years' term, but if 
he be not a candidate for reelection, as often 
happens, and always when he is in his second term, 
he is as irresponsible as a Turkish sultan. Obviously 
the whole chain of accountability is worthless when 
this most important link is missing. If the chief 
executive officer should be responsible, as is gener- 
ally admitted in America, that responsibility must 
be enforceable by somebody, and that somebody 
can hardly be other than the legislature. Here we 
have the unity of the government secured, and we 
have the work of each man judged by the authority 



THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 71 

most competent to decide whether it be well or ill 
done. 

Here Mr. Stickney stops. Everybody thus far 
has an effective responsibility to an immediate 
superior, all ending- in the legislature. To whom is 
the legislature to be responsible ? To itself ! Elected 
to serve during good behavior, the members are 
mutually to judge the behavior of each other, and to 
expel those who fall below a proper standard. This 
reductio ad absurdum sufficiently explains why Mr. 
Stickney 's many acute and admirable ideas have not 
had the vogue they deserve. The present condition 
of the United States Senate indicates the fate of a 
government whose ultimate powers were lodged in 
a body free from any control but that of its own 
conscience. The natural sequence of the responsi- 
bility of the executive to the legislature is to make 
the legislature responsible to the people. Each 
individual member should be accountable to his own 
constituents for any wrong in which he had a share. 
In that way only can a permanent regard for the 
public interests be insured. 

The effective control of the legislature over the 
executive could be greatly promoted by the presence 
of the heads of departments on the floor. Without 
that presence the chief executive might sometimes 
have difficulty in determining whether things were 
going well in his administration or not. His sub- 
ordinates, of course, would tell him that they were, 
and he might not find it easy to check their asser- 
tions. But if the heads of departments had seats in 
the legislative body their manner of encountering 



72 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

criticisms would show conclusively where the truth 
lay, and if, after that, their chief refused to call them 
to account for established mismanagement, he would 
properly be subject to discipline himself. 

Although the power of removal should everywhere 
be unchecked, it seems reasonable to believe that 
entrance to the public service, in the lowest grades, 
should be by open competitive examination, fol- 
lowed by probationary work, and that appointments 
in the higher grades, up to those which demand a 
degree of talent which could not be secured without 
free range of choice, should be made by promotions 
from the lower. This plan works well in the army 
and navy, where, indeed, the idea of promotion is 
maintained to the very top. It is the rule of the 
civil service in the best administered foreign coun- 
tries, and it has been applied with success to a lim- 
ited extent in our own. Persons who have won their 
places on their own merits are likely, on the whole, 
to be better qualified than those selected through 
favoritism, and the power of removal would be a 
sufficient protection against the injury of the ser- 
vice by the accidental intrusion of the undeserving. 

The object of the requirement of due notice before 
the removal of the chief executive by the legislative 
body is obvious. It would not only give the accused 
official an opportunity for defense, but would enable 
the people, if they thought him unjustly treated, to 
stop the proceedings, and, if necessary, recall their 
representatives. The need for a two-thirds vote for 
removal would also protect an accused head of the 
government against tyrannical action by a hostile 



THE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT. 73 

majority. It should be understood, however, that 
removal as a means of enforcing a proper responsi- 
bility in the government would not be analogous to 
our present process of impeachment. There would 
be no formal trial and no necessity of alleging crime 
or misdemeanors. Simple mismanagement would 
be enough, and the discretion of the legislature 
would be absolute. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PARTIES. 

It is an American and English habit of mind to 
regard a free people as necessarily divided into two 
great, hostile, political organizations. This sup- 
posed necessity has even been exalted into an 
immutable principle of human nature. The sug- 
gestion that it might be possible to conceive a free 
government without permanent parties has been 
disposed of by the summary rejoinder that such a 
thing would require a preliminary reconstruction of 
the constitution of the mind. If this be true, of 
course the question is settled, but possibly a little 
reflection may put it in a different light. 

The party system may be considered in two 
aspects — first, as to its necessity ; second, as to its 
desirability. If it be an inevitable outgrowth of 
the human mind, of course the discussion of the 
second point will have a merely academic interest. 
If, on the contrary, parties can be shown to have no 
essential connection with the constitution of the 
universe, it may be worth while to devote some 
attention to the question whether they are a good 
thing in themselves. 

Parties are supposed to be the outgrowth of the 
differences of opinion and interest characteristic of 
free communities. Such differences have always 

(74) 



PARTIES. 75 

existed and may always be expected to exist. The 
question is whether they necessarily tend to form a 
permanent line of cleavage, splitting the community 
into two approximately equal parts, each of which 
acts in political matters as a unit, in opposition to 
the other. There are something like fifteen million 
voters in the United States. That they should 
divide in the proportions of seven millions to each 
of two great parties, and a million to three or four 
scattering factions, seems no more necessarily 
implied in the nature of things than that eight, ten, 
twelve, or fourteen millions should act together, or, 
on the other hand, that no single group should 
exceed half a million or a million. If seven million 
voters can act together as a party, there appears to 
be no reason why they could not act together if they 
constituted the whole nation. Yet we know that 
when there were only seven million voters in this 
country, party lines were as deep as now, and when 
there were only a million, half of them were indus- 
triously engaged in fighting the rest. 

This curious persistence of party divisions, regard- 
less of the number of persons involved in them, 
seems to lend color to the theory that there is some 
mysterious and irresistible propensity of human 
nature that compels a community to segregate itself 
on factional lines. And there is an irresistible 
tendency in that direction, but it has nothing to do 
with human nature in the abstract. It is the direct 
result of our present methods of government, which 
are so arranged that political results can be attained 
only by putting certain men in office. Electioneering 



76 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

for office, being thus made an indispensable means 
to the attainment of any desired object, naturally 
comes to be regarded as an end in itself. The 
people who wish the enactment of certain measures 
are compelled to associate themselves for the elec- 
tion of certain men. Immediately personal ambi- 
tions and loyalty to individual leaders overshadow 
the nominal objects of party organization. Soon a 
habit of joint action on all occasions is formed 
among men who originally came together for cer- 
tain definite purposes. The party assumes the 
coherence, discipline, and permanence of an army ; 
it persists long after the issues on which it came 
into existence have been settled, and we have the 
curious conception of "loyalty " and " treason "to a 
voluntary association created solely for the effective 
joint action of its members on matters upon which 
they all agree. 

The attempts to find an enduring philosophical 
basis for parties are as remote from practical 
affairs as Lucian's discussions of the politics of 
the moon. In England it is generally said that 
men naturally fall into the two great divisions of 
those who are satisfied with things as they are and 
those who want a change. In America we are told 
that the line of separation is that between the 
believers in a centralized government and the advo- 
cates of the rights of the States. In practice these 
distinctions are entirely mythical. The Tory Demo- 
crats, who are among the most zealous conservative 
campaigners in England, are less opposed to change 
than the Whig aristocrats who continue to act with 



PARTIES. 77 

the Liberals. In this country the most sweeping 
encroachments on the rights of the States since the 
time of reconstruction have been made by Demo- 
cratic administrations and Democratic Congresses. 

There is no obvious connection between the 
exclusion of slavery from the Territories and the 
protection of manufactures by tariff duties. Yet 
the Republican party, which owed its existence to 
the former idea, and which was originally composed 
of men holding all varieties of opinions on economic 
subjects, now makes protection its supreme test of 
orthodoxy, in spite of which it still retains the 
allegiance of low-tariff men who joined it solely 
because of its position on the dead and forgotten 
issue of slavery. 

That the persistence of parties is the result of 
struggles for official place, rather than of differences 
with regard to principles or policies, is demonstrated 
by the fact that the two great parties remain nearly 
equal in strength. When one greatly preponder- 
ates over the other for any length of time, there is 
a reorganization. This approximate equality is 
necessarily involved in contests for place, because it 
is essential to the vigorous prosecution of such 
struggles that each side should have a chance of 
success. If the question at issue were impersonal, 
there would be no more improbability of an equal 
division than of a division in any other proportion. 
The difference is well illustrated by the election of 
1 892 in California. On that occasion the Democratic 
vote for presidential electors ranged from 117,840 to 
118,174, and the Republican vote from 117,504 to 



78 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

1 18,027. At the same time the people voted on nine 
constitutional amendments and other propositions. 
On the question whether United States Senators 
should be elected by the people there were 187,958 
votes in the affirmative against 13,342 in the nega- 
tive. The act authorizing the San Francisco Harbor 
Commissioners to issue bonds to the amount of 
five hundred thousand dollars, for the construction 
of a new ferry depot, was approved by a vote of 
91,296 to 90,430. An educational qualification for 
the suffrage was favored by 151,320 votes to 41,059. 
The proposition to refund the State debt was 
rejected by 85,604 votes in the negative to 79,900 in 
the affirmative. Three constitutional amendments 
were defeated — the first, altering the power of the 
governor with reference to vetoes, by 87,708 votes to 
69,286 ; the second, extending the length of legisla- 
tive sessions, by 153,831 to 36,442, and the third, 
increasing the salary of the lieutenant-governor, by 
128,743 to 43,456. Two were ratified, one, limiting 
local debts, by 108,942 to 59,548; and the other, 
authorizing all cities of over three thousand five 
hundred inhabitants to frame their own charters, by 
114,617 to 42,076. 

The fate of these nine propositions ranged all the 
way from defeat by a margin of 117,389 votes to 
success by a majority of 174,616. Yet if they had 
depended entirely upon legislative action, and the 
Democrats had indorsed them all while the Repub- 
licans opposed them, or the Republicans had indorsed 
them all and the Democrats opposed them, or one 
party had taken precisely the ground on each which 



PARTIES. 79 

the returns show the people to have favored while 
the other took precisely the opposite ground, no 
politician familiar with the facts will say that there 
would have been a difference of ten thousand votes 
in the strength of the party tickets. Nor would the 
difference have been much greater if the Republican 
platform had declared for free trade and the Demo- 
cratic one for protection, or vice versa. Democrats 
would have continued to vote for Cleveland, and 
Republicans for Harrison, in any circumstances. 

In all the States it is more usual for constitutional 
amendments to be decided by enormous majorities 
one way or the other than by close votes. This is 
sufficient evidence that there is nothing in the 
nature of things impelling the people to split into 
two equal parts on questions' of principle. There is 
no reason to suppose that if the tariff, or silver, or 
any other of the questions that now afford the pre- 
text for party battles, were submitted without per- 
sonal complications, the result would be different. 

But with all questions of principle eliminated, it 
would be impossible to maintain party divisions. 
When the politician could no longer rally his 
cohorts with an appeal to " stand by the immortal 
principles of our party," and the stump-speaker had 
nothing to say except, " Elect Smith because he 
wants the office," political allegiance would sit 
lightly on the masses. If one candidate were con- 
spicuously superior to his opponent, the people would 
be likely to flock to his support as generally as the 
people of California supported the proposition to 
take the election of United States Senators out of 



80 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

the hands of the Legislature. This would be 
especially probable if the methods of election were 
properly reformed. 

So much for the inherent necessity of parties. 
What of their desirability ? In England, where the 
system is carried to its logical extreme, the country 
is in a state of unceasing political war. Every 
important measure proposed in Parliament is a party 
measure, which must be supported in all its details 
by the members of one party, even when they per- 
sonally disapprove of it, and desperately fought at 
all stages by the members of the other, even when 
they think it in the public interest. At the begin- 
ning of a session the Cabinet looks over the majority 
upon which it must depend to keep it in office. Then 
it reckons up the various reforms, jobs, and fads 
upon which the hearts of different fractions of this 
majority are especially set, and composes from them 
a "programme,'' each item of which is the price of 
a certain group of votes, and may be distasteful, not 
only to the whole of the minority party, but to the 
bulk of the majority. If, as sometimes happens, 
there is some paramount issue on which the national 
mandate has been clearly expressed, this central dish 
on the parliamentary board is garnished with a 
variety of relishes, added to please small cliques of 
members whose support is necessary to the success 
of the party in its chief objects. No measure pro- 
posed by the minority, however meritorious it may 
be, has any chance of adoption. There is no pos- 
sibility of candid discussion, for almost every mem- 
ber speaks as an attorney, not as an unprejudiced 



PARTIES. 81 

reasoner, and the few free lances who say what they 
think generally forfeit their influence by their 
infractions of party discipline, and gain the reputa- 
tion of being erratic and untrustworthy. The best 
way to attain sound ideas, as Matthew Arnold tells 
us, is to let the mind play easily about the subject 
under consideration, and form its judgment uncon- 
sciously from a contemplation of the topic from all 
sides. " For this judgment comes almost of itself ; 
and what it displaces, it displaces easily and natu- 
rally, and without any turmoil of controversial rea- 
sonings. The thing comes to look differently to us, 
as we look at it by the light of fresh knowledge. 
We are not beaten from our old opinion by logic ; 
we are not driven off our ground ; our ground itself 
changes with us." 

If we were looking for the process of all others 
most radically irreconcilable with the "sweet rea- 
sonableness," through which the truth is best 
approached, we should find it in the clash of vin- 
dictive, unthinking, and irreconcilable prejudices 
that constitutes an English party contest. 

In America things are better in some respects 
and worse in others. Partisanship here is less 
universal in its scope, but even more squalid in its 
manifestations. The bulk of the legislation of Con- 
gress, and almost all of that of an average State 
legislature, in ordinary times, is non-partisan in 
character, and an adroit leader of the political 
minority may have almost or quite as much 
influence in its passage as if he belonged to the 
majority. But where the partisan spirit does get 

6 



82 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

in, its developments are expressibly small and 
mean. It turns out door-keepers, degrades school- 
teachers, and makes spoils out of the sufferings of 
paupers. It is the sole support of the power of 
bosses. It makes the promotion of one " party- 
measure," which it often fails to carry, the excuse 
for years of jobbery and plunder. 

The persistence of parties, under our present 
conditions, is due to the fact that the citizen 
exhausts all his political power for a fixed period 
in a single act, and that act the election of some 
man or men to office. There may be a dozen prin- 
ciples which he would like to see embodied in 
legislation, but he can neither vote for each of them 
directly nor for a different man for each principle. 
The best he can do is to vote for a candidate whose 
views, on the whole, are most nearly in accordance 
with his own, and resign himself to being mis- 
represented on the points upon which he and his 
candidate differ. From this has arisen the habit of 
picking out what seem to be for the moment the 
most important subjects in dispute, making them 
the issues on which candidates contest for election 
and ignoring less pressing matters. This at once 
divides the community into parties, having the 
nominal ultimate purpose of carrying out their 
characteristic principles, and the actual immediate 
purpose of getting their candidates into office. To 
attain this immediate purpose the parties bid for 
the support of groups of voters with special hob- 
bies by expressing sympathy with their desires, and 
the result is the modern " platform," with its amaz- 



PARTIES. 83 

ing jumble of ideas, which, as a whole, corresponds 
to nobody's real opinions, and least of all to those of 
the men who draw it up. 

The party system, dividing the mass of the com- 
munity into two immovable and nearly equal 
sections, puts the entire' control of politics into the 
hands of the small mobile element between. Some 
of these floating voters are independents, who 
honestly try to use their power in the public 
interest, but in too many cases they are in the 
market, either for legislative favors or for ready 
cash. The purchasable vote, whether of tramps or 
of millionaires, would be harmless if the desires of 
the whole people had free play. It is a division 
which gives so much importance to the " balance of 
power" that enables floaters and trusts to dictate 
terms to party managers. 

As party government has naturally grown out of 
present conditions, so it would naturally disappear 
if the conditions were changed. There is no reason 
why the man who believes in free trade, the single 
gold standard, and the Government ownership of 
railroads, should seek all those objects through one 
political organization, except that under our present 
methods he has only one vote, and must cast it for 
the candidate of one political organization or lose it. 
If he could vote on each important measure sepa- 
rately he would probably belong to one association, 
or party, devoted to the propagation of the free- 
trade idea ; to another working for the gold standard, 
and to another engaged in agitating for the nationali- 
zation of railroads. He would no more expect always 



84 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

to associate with the same men in political matters 
than in social, religious, and business matters. A 
man does not attempt to promote the Westminster 
Confession, encourage vaccination, prevent cruelty 
to animals, and deal in stocks through a single 
organization, and there is no more reason why a 
single party should have the work of handling a 
dozen unrelated problems of government. The 
mere fact that all are called Democrats, and act 
together on two or three questions, is not enough to 
form one class of Representatives Bland, Johnson, 
Harter, Bryan, Cockran, and Tracy, sharply marked 
off from another class containing Senators Aldrich, 
Sherman, Cameron, Hansbrough, Teller, and Wol- 
cott. 

With the introduction of direct legislation and the 
abolition of periodical elections, parties would cease 
to be either permanent or rigid. If free trade once 
became thoroughly established, and settled beyond 
danger of early disturbance, the party formed to 
work for it would disappear. New groups would be 
continually forming and dissolving. There would 
be no danger from excesses of party spirit, since 
men would lose the habit of regarding themselves 
as members of hostile armies when their allies on 
one question were their opponents on another. As 
the bulk of American legislation now is non- 
partisan, and those questions which arouse partisan 
antagonisms would then be withdrawn from the 
determination of the legislative bodies and referred 
to the people, there would be no occasion for parti- 
sanship in the representative assemblies, and men 



PARTIES. 85 

would be elected to them simply on the score of 
their general ability and character, and would be 
kept in office as long as they did satisfactory work. 
There would be an end then of the curious super- 
stition that an idea whose reasonableness commends 
it to half of the nation must necessarily, by that very 
fact, be repugnant to the other half. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 

The various evils for which it is the purpose of 
this book to suggest remedies are felt in their 
acutest form in the government of cities. They are 
so keenly realized that it is unnecessary to spend 
any time here in expatiating upon them. Applying 
the principles already discussed to the affairs of a 
typical city, let us see what the results would be 
likely to be as compared with those of the present 
method. 

Suppose our city to contain five hundred thousand 
inhabitants, of whom one hundred thousand are 
voters. We divide it into two hundred election 
precincts, with approximately five hundred voters 
in each. For every precinct we provide a meeting 
hall. Of course, three or four adjoining precincts 
could often use one convenient building in com- 
mon. There would be a primary assembly in each 
precinct composed of all the qualified voters within 
its limits. These assemblies would hold regular 
monthly meetings in the evenings, after working 
hours, and special meetings as often as necessary. 
Each precinct would be entitled to one representa- 
tive in the city council, and this representative 
would be the only municipal officer, except the 
auditor, for whom the citizens would vote. He 

(86) 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 87 

would hold his place as long as he suited his con- 
stituents, and whenever he ceased to give satis- 
faction his assembly could revoke his credentials 
and elect somebody else. The members of the city 
council would receive no salaries. They would 
hold weekly meetings in the evening, and would 
be expected to have some private occupation or 
means of support with which their public duties 
would not interfere. They would elect the mayor, 
whom they would have the power of removing, 
after two months' notice, by a two-thirds vote. 
The mayor, like the members of the council, would 
have no fixed term of office. 

The mayor would appoint all the heads of the 
executive departments, except the auditor, and they 
would hold office at his pleasure. He would also 
appoint the municipal judges, who would retain 
their places during good behavior, and would not be 
subject to removal, except after formal trial on 
definite charges. All appointments would be made 
on the sole responsibility of the appointing power, 
without the necessity of confirmation. The heads 
of departments would have seats in the city council, 
and each would be ex officio a member of the com- 
mittee having jurisdiction over the subjects dealt 
with by his department. The mayor, also, would 
have the right to address the council at any time. 
Each head of a department would have the right of 
appointing and removing his immediate subordi- 
nates, and they in turn would have the right of 
appointing and removing the officials under them; 
the principle being that every man in the public 



88 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

service should be directly responsible to his imme- 
diate superior, and to nobody else. Thus there 
would be an unbroken chain of responsibility from 
the lowest clerk or janitor, through the chief of 
bureau, head of department, mayor, and city council, 
direct to the people. Every superior official who 
connived at a wrong committed by a subordinate 
would take it on his own shoulders, and the matter 
would come, by two or three stages at most, to the 
mayor, whose failure to act would subject him to 
removal by the city council, any member of which 
who condoned the offense would be liable to chal- 
lenge by any citizen in his precinct assembly, fol- 
lowed by a vote of dismissal. 

The auditor would be elected by the citizens at 
large, acting through their several assemblies. He 
would appoint his own deputies and would be sub- 
ject to removal by a two-thirds vote of the council, 
as in the case of the mayor. If reelected, however, 
he would not be liable to removal again within a 
year. It would be his duty to examine all claims 
against the city ; to refuse to audit any improper 
bills ; to maintain a general oversight over the finan- 
cial operations of the municipal government, and to 
report to the council, of which he would be ex officio 
a member, any discoveries of misconduct or sugges- 
tions of improvement. Every executive department 
would have a single head, but the superintend- 
ent of schools would have the assistance of an 
advisory council of twelve principals selected by 
himself. All important educational matters would 
have to be referred to this council for public discus- 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 89 

sion and advice, but the ultimate decision in all 
cases would rest with the superintendent alone. 
Similarly, the chief of police would receive expert 
advice from a board of captains, and the chief of the 
fire department from a board of district engineers, 
but the final control of each department would be 
undivided. The city council would have the right 
to pass any municipal ordinance, without liability to 
executive veto, but on demand of one-fifth of the 
members of the council, of the mayor, or of ten pre- 
cinct assemblies, any measure so passed could be 
submitted to popular vote for approval or rejection. 
In the same way a vote could be procured on any 
measure on which the council had refused to pass. 

To see how such a system would work, let us com- 
pare it with the present methods in actual operation. 
San Francisco is an average city, with which I have 
the advantage of a more thorough acquaintance than 
with any other. It contains about sixty thousand 
registered voters, and consequently, under the plan 
proposed, would be divided into one hundred and 
twenty precincts, giving a city council of one hun- 
dred and twenty members. In each precinct the 
people would vote at indeterminate times for the 
auditor and for a member of the council. Only one 
of these would be elected at a time, and the people 
would have to show very much less political capacity 
than they have ever shown yet if they did not scru- 
tinize the names suggested with critical attention. 

Under the present system every citizen of San 
Francisco is expected to vote every two years for a 
mayor, sheriff, auditor, treasurer, city and county 



90 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

attorney, coroner, tax collector, county clerk, record- 
er, district attorney, public administrator, surveyor, 
superintendent of streets, four superior judges, four 
police judges, five justices of the peace, twelve 
supervisors, and twelve members of the board of 
education — a total of fifty municipal officials, in 
addition to those elected to fill vacancies. Each 
citizen is also called upon to vote at the same time 
for a representative in Congress, and a member of 
the State Assembly ; and every four years for an 
assesssor, superintendent of schools, nine presi- 
dential electors, a governor, lieutenant-governor, 
secretary of State, controller, State treasurer, State 
superintendent of public instruction, surveyor-gen- 
eral, attorney-general, railroad commissioner, mem- 
ber of the State board of equalization, State senator, 
two or more supreme justices, and clerk of the 
supreme court. At the last election, moreover, it 
was necessary, in addition to all this, to vote for or 
against five constitutional amendments and four 
propositions, and at the next election there will be 
nine constitutional amendments to be voted upon. 
Whenever a citizen of San Francisco goes to the 
polls he is required to assist in filling from sixty to 
eighty different offices, and is obliged to select from 
among about three hundred candidates. It would 
be natural to expect him in despair to give up all 
attempts at discrimination and vote a straight party 
ticket, and the fact that a large majority of the bal- 
lots deposited in San Francisco are scratched testifies 
to an honest determination to perform political 
duties which would work wonders for good govern- 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 91 

ment if it were exercised under less discouraging 
circumstances. The mayor of San Francisco is 
generally honest. The majority of the legislative 
body, or board of supervisors, and most of the heads 
of departments, are always corrupt. Seven mem- 
bers of the board of supervisors can pass any ordi- 
nance that does not require the mayor's signature, 
and nine can pass anything over his veto. It has 
been customary to organize a " Solid Nine " for 
transactions in legislation of all descriptions, but 
sometimes there are more than three honest mem- 
bers in the board, and then it is necessary to be con- 
tent with such speculations as can be carried through 
by a " Solid Seven." This considerably restricts the 
field for enterprise. Lately the discovery that the 
annual order fixing water rates, which is usually 
considered the most profitable perquisite of the 
board, can be legally enacted without the mayor's 
signature, has largely increased the possibilities 
open to a bare majority, and correspondingly reduced 
the importance of the mayor. 

The income of the water company is over one 
million six hundred thousand dollars a year. The 
maintenance of this income depends entirely upon 
the votes of seven members of the board of super- 
visors, and these seven men have it in their power 
to keep the company's stock at par or practically to 
wipe out its value. The stock has never fallen very 
far below par. The people have repeatedly elected 
supervisors pledged to make material reductions in 
water rates, but the pledges are never kept. Under 
the present system of government there is absolutely 



92 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

no remedy for these breaches of faith. Almost all 
of the nostrums commonly recommended have been 
tried. The plan of " electing good men to office " is 
followed at almost every election, and the only 
result is to turn good men into bad. The most sub- 
stantial and respected citizens in the community 
turn rascals when they become supervisors. The 
concentration of temptation is too much for them. 
The plan of rewards and punishments has been tried 
to the fullest extent. For years it has been the 
custom to promote honest supervisors to the mayor- 
alty, and from that the road has been open to the 
governorship, while dishonest ones have been 
dropped into political oblivion at the end of their 
first terms. There have always been a few ambi- 
tious aspirants in training for higher office, but the 
majority of the supervisors have been willing to 
sacrifice their political future for the sake of winning 
an independent competency for life in two years. 
Mass meetings have been held, and " ringing resolu- 
tions" adopted, mayors have remonstrated, and 
newspapers have bombarded the board with " scath- 
ing editorials," but as all these protests have been 
destitute of legal authority, the community having 
given an irrevocable power of attorney for two 
years, the supervisors have stolidly consummated 
their bargains without even taking the trouble to 
defend them. 

What would have been the situation under the 
plan proposed ? In the first place it would have 
been necessary for the corporation to obtain pos_ 
session of sixty-one men instead of seven, and this 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 93 

fact alone would have been likely either to raise the 
cost beyond what the company could afford to pay, 
or to reduce the temptation to a point at which it 
could be resisted. Supposing this difficulty sur- 
mounted, the work would have only begun. As 
soon as the corporation acquired possession of a 
councilman, he would be recalled by his precinct 
assembly, and another sent to take his place. 
It would be necessary to corrupt the whole 
city before a stable majority in the council 
could be secured. But before matters had pro- 
gressed very far in that direction, the subject 
would have been taken out of the hands of the 
council and submitted to a direct vote of the 
people. Obviously bribery under such circum- 
stances would be a waste of money, of which no 
sensible corporation would be guilty. A reasonable 
policy would be adopted, which could be defended 
before the public by honest arguments, and the 
resources, now spent in corruption, would be saved, 
to the common benefit of the pockets of the stock- 
holders and the morals of the community. 

Another common evil in San Francisco is fraudu- 
lent street work. Paving contractors are usually 
expected to share their profits with the officials 
who pass upon the performance of their contracts. 
If they make a satisfactory division, bad work 
passes as easily as good. If they refuse, good work 
is as certain to be rejected as bad. Obviously good 
jobs under such conditions are scarce. The public 
knows that this sort of thing is going on all the time, 
but, not knowing how to apply a remedy, it does 



94 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

nothing. It would do no good to complain to the 
mayor. He has no authority to interfere with street 
work. That is under joint control of the superin- 
tendent of streets and the street committee of the 
board of supervisors. These irresponsible auto- 
crats may be, and often are, of different parties, so 
that even the resource of partisan discipline, such as 
it is, fails when applied to them. Is a party respon- 
sible for a corrupt superintendent of streets to be 
punished for the benefit of a party responsible for 
his corrupt partners in the board of supervisors? 
And what if the situation be, as sometimes happens, 
that the obnoxious officials do not represent either 
party, but were elected by a non-partisan uprising 
for reform ? Of course the people can threaten the 
culprits with individual defeat at the next election, 
and this is usually done, but the menace of political 
action two years in the future does not protect the 
streets in the meantime — not to speak of the 
paralyzing certainty that the persons to be elected 
will faithfully copy the examples set by their 
predecessors. 

If the government were organized on the pro- 
posed basis, any imperfect piece of street work 
would be noticed by the citizens of the precinct 
immediately affected, and would be discussed at 
the next meeting of their local assembly. The 
councilman from that precinct would be called upon 
to have the matter righted. He would demand an 
explanation from the superintendent of streets in 
an open session of the council. If the superin- 
tendent laid the blame upon a subordinate, he 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 95 

would be required to dismiss that subordinate or 
assume the responsibility himself. If he chose the 
latter alternative, it would become the duty of the 
mayor to remove him, and the failure of the mayor 
to take action would be punishable by the council, 
which in turn would be held to account by the 
voters in their various assemblies. Of course the 
discovery of misconduct would not necessarily be 
left entirely to the people of the localities especially 
affected. Any resident of the city would have the 
right to direct attention to any fault he might 
discover in the administration of any branch of the 
government. Any member of the council could 
force any head of a department to furnish a public 
explanation of any suspicious circumstance occur- 
ring within his jurisdiction. Newspaper charges of 
mismanagement and corruption, which now are 
empty sensations, forgotten as soon as made, would 
then lead in every case to definite results. No 
journal could be so destitute of influence as to be 
unable to secure the cooperation of a councilman in 
putting its accusations into official form. Instead 
of calling upon the people to rise and beat the air in 
unavailing wrath, it would be able to concentrate 
the whole force of public opinion, not only in a 
moral, but in a legal, form upon the precise points 
at which it could accomplish the needed results. 

But now let us proceed to the crucial test of 
municipal reform in America — the government of 
the city of New York. Any plan that would insure 
a pure and efficient administration there would 
work well anywhere. 



96 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

New York is governed by corporations of politi- 
cians organized to exploit the various sources of 
revenue legitimately and illegitimately controlled 
by the persons who hold the municipal offices. 
The corporation at present in possession is known as 
Tammany Hall, but it is a mistake to suppose that 
the defeat or even the total destruction of Tammany 
would imply any permanent change in the methods 
of municipal administration. It is estimated that 
the city government of New York is equivalent to a 
capital of eight hundred million dollars, the income 
of which may be enjoyed by whatever combination 
of politicians succeeds in capturing it. It is doing 
violence to all the principles of human nature to 
imagine that this booty will be left to the disposal of 
high-minded political amateurs after the art of 
acquiring it has been so thoroughly taught by 
Tammany and its predecessors. Reform is spas- 
modic, but greed is permanent. Greed works all 
the time ; reform works when it has no previous 
engagements. If Tammany were destroyed, a new 
combination, just as powerful and just as hungry, 
would be in control within four years. 

The machinery of government in New York has 
been brought to almost the highest possible point 
of perfection attainable under the principles now in 
vogue. The confusion and irresponsibility that 
reign in San Francisco and other cities have been 
replaced by an almost complete concentration of 
administrative authority in the hands of the mayor, 
and the opportunities for corruption open to the 
common council have been nearly eliminated. Yet 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 97 

New York is unable to secure even a tolerably good 
government for more than two years out of six. 
The only resource left to try on the old lines is the 
complete separation of municipal affairs from State 
and national politics, and this is the straw at which 
reformers are now grasping most hopefully. But a 
little reflection must show that no radical change in 
the present conditions can be expected from this 
reform, desirable as it is in itself. It has been tried 
in various cities without startling results. If it 
were completely established in New York, the 
biennial election Avould still be a lottery. The 
people of Brooklyn thought that they were getting 
good mayors when they elected Mr. Chapin and 
Mr. Boody. A mistake once made, would be 
irrevocable for two years, and in that time a new 
combination could be built up as formidable as 
Tammany. By virtue of its possession of the 
powers of the city government it would control 
the largest, most compact, and best organized mass 
of votes in the field, and to defeat it all the antago- 
nistic elements would have to be united in the 
support of a single ticket. Two opposition tickets, 
under the prevailing system of plurality elections, 
would insure the success of the combination. 

If the plan of government advocated in these 
pages were adopted for New York, it would be 
advisable, for the sake of convenience, to put a 
thousand voters in each precinct. As it is not 
likely that over four-fifths of the number would be 
in attendance at any one time, this would not swell 
the assemblies to an unwieldly size. On the basis 

7 



98 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

of a total registration of three hundred thousand, 
the city council would contain three hundred mem- 
bers. These would not be swept into place on a 
general ticket on which, to most of the voters, the 
names were mere fortuitous collocations of syllables, 
but each would be elected on his own individual 
merits by a meeting of his neighbors at which he 
was bodily in evidence. The nominations would be 
made at the hour of election, and the beetle-browed 
plug-ugly, ambitious of a seat in the council, would 
have to stand up and let his fellow-citizens see what 
they were voting for. The candidates could be 
called upon by any voter to express their views 
upon the proper choice for mayor, and the nature of 
a desirable municipal policy. This exhibition would 
be followed by an immediate vote, confined to the 
single office of councilman for the precinct, with 
no outside complications. 

The council thus elected would choose the mayor. 
This action would be more closely scrutinized than 
any other in its career. A bad choice would get the 
councilmen responsible for it into immediate trouble 
with their constituents. They would be recalled 
and replaced by others who would vote to correct 
the mistake by removing the bad mayor and elect- 
ing a better one. The new mayor would appoint 
his heads of departments, and the character of his 
appointment would be subjected to microscopic 
scrutiny by the press. If there were any faults 
that failed to be detected by that examination, they 
would be disclosed when the new officials took their 
seats in the city council and submitted to a weekly 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 99 

baiting regarding the management of their depart- 
ments. Whenever an acute reporter discovered a 
lurking job in any corner of the city government, 
he would prompt some friend in the council — first, 
of course, filing a caveat on it for the benefit of his 
paper- — to ask embarrassing questions of the 
responsible official. 

Under this system the government would have a 
constant tendency to improve, instead of to dete- 
riorate, as it has now. The quality of the council 
would grow better from year to year, as the voters 
in the precinct assemblies became better acquainted 
with each other and had time to observe the conduct 
of their representatives. Unfit councilmen would 
be gradually eliminated, and the men who had com- 
mended themselves to their precinct assemblies by 
their intelligent interest in public affairs would be 
substituted. Of course there would always be a 
number of bad men in the council. There are 
certain districts in New York which could be fairly 
represented only by thieves and ruffians, and these 
would naturally elect thieves and ruffians to act for 
them. But the influence of this vicious vote would 
be localized and rendered harmless, instead of 
being permitted, as now, to taint the elections 
of the whole city, and even to determine the choice 
of a President of the United States. The council, 
in the end, would perfectly reflect the- moral condi- 
tion of its constituents. So long as the mass of the 
people remains sound, that is all we need, and when 
the mass becomes corrupt, it will be time to abandon 
the attempt to maintain self-government. 



100 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

Compare the opportunities open to the well-mean- 
ing individual citizen under this system with those 
open to him under the present methods. In the 
New York of to-day, the individual voter can do 
absolutely nothing in the intervals between cam- 
paigns. Throughout these periods he must be 
content to be governed by an irresponsible despot- 
ism. Upon the approach of an election it is open to 
him to decide whether to support or oppose Tam- 
many. Assuming that he so far subdues his 
feelings as to determine to act through the domi- 
nant machine, and further that he carries his 
devotion to the public welfare to such an extent as 
to heed the appeals of reformers to "take part in 
the primaries," he goes on the appointed evening to 
a hall filled with men of unfamiliar aspect and not 
apparently intent upon the advancement of munic- 
ipal reform. He is handed a ballot as large as half a 
page of a newspaper, filled with hundreds of names 
in closely . printed columns. Probably not one of 
these names is known to our citizen, but he can 
safely assume that if elected their holders will 
stand, in the general committee and the nominating 
conventions, as the defenders of all the evils which 
our reformer particularly desires to suppress. It 
will be safe, therefore, for him to scratch them all 
and make out a new list. Supposing this physical 
impossibility to be performed, and the amended 
ballot, with the names of three or four hundred 
trustworthy candidates written upon it, to be 
dropped into the box, there remains the problem 
of getting it out. Our pertinacious citizen remains 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 101 

on duty until the polls are closed, and then waits 
patiently for the returns. As preparations are made 
for putting out the lights and clearing the hall, he 
ventures to ask when the count is going to begin. 
An amiable inspector informs him that there is no 
hurry about that — the box will be taken up to the 
Wigwam and opened sometime in the course of the 
next day. 

If the protesting citizen had a thousand com- 
panions, and if instead of one hastily scratched 
ticket they had provided a complete supply of 
properly printed opposition ballots in advance, this 
last precaution would finish them. 

In the absence of a quarrel among the bosses, the 
only opportunity to make a stand against Tammany 
corruption is at the polls in a general election, where 
a hundred and fifty thousand voters of all shades of 
opinion must sink their individuality and loyally sup- 
port exactly the same list of candidates, prepared for 
them by conferences that must necessarily take in a 
number of politicians as little worthy of confidence 
as the Tammany sachems themselves. This supreme 
effort must be made on a fixed day, and a failure or 
mistake then is irremediable for two years. In any 
case the part which any one ordinary citizen can 
play is so infinitesimal that the spirit of independent 
revolt against misgovernment is crushed out in 
most men by the apparent impossibility of effecting 
results. 

Under the suggested reorganization of the gov- 
ernment, the individual citizen would have at all 
times the fullest opportunity to make his influence 



102 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

felt. Whenever he saw anything going wrong he 
could bring up the subject in his precinct assembly, 
where he would feel at home, and where his char- 
acter would have its due weight. If his arguments 
were convincing, he could secure a vote of the 
assembly instructing its councilman to demand a 
public explanation of the responsible official, or, if 
necessary, removing the councilman and substitut- 
ing one more in sympathy with the desires of his 
constituents. If the explanation demanded of the 
executive official proved unsatisfactory, councilmen 
from other precincts would at once join in the 
attack, the press would take the matter up, and 
before long there would have to be reform or resig- 
nations. 

Under the present system a corrupt government 
is corrupt all through, and the only light that is 
thrown into its foul recesses must come from the 
outside, from newspapers or other amateur investi- 
gators*, with no official standing and no certainly 
authentic sources of information. Under the new 
plan, with each precinct assembly a living entity of 
itself, there would always, in the worst possible cir- 
cumstances, be a number of precincts controlled by 
the best citizens, and the representatives of these in 
the city council would be in a position to possess an 
inside acquaintance with every detail of the munic- 
ipal administration. They would have the right to 
call every head of department publicly to account, 
and to put searching questions, demanding categor- 
ical answers, regarding every instance of misconduct. 
With the chiefs of the city government thus pub- 



MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. 103 

licly on trial at every meeting of the council, these 
meetings would be fully reported in the newspapers, 
which would make them the great news " features " 
of their next morning's issues. The effect would 
inevitably be to arouse an agitation that would lead 
one precinct assembly after another to recall its 
unworthy representative in the council, and as the 
remainder saw their numbers diminishing and those 
of the reformers increasing, there would come a 
stampede for the winning side. The honest minor- 
ity would grow to the necessary two-thirds majority, 
the corrupt mayor would be removed, and his 
successor would institute a general house-cleaning in 
the departments. 

It may be said that the power of removing the 
mayor might be used by a dishonest council to rid 
itself of an honest executive. This danger would 
be effectively averted by forbidding the removal of 
the mayor except on two months' notice. If the 
mayor were plainly in the right and the council in 
the wrong, the citizens in their precinct assemblies 
could take advantage of the delay to instruct their 
councilmen to stop the proceedings, and, if necessary, 
they could recall their representatives and substitute 
others friendly to the mayor's policy. If, at the end 
of two months, there still remained a two-thirds 
majority of the council in favor of removal, it would 
be because the people plainly desired that action. 

One objection to the proposed plan may be said 
to be the fact that it subdivides the city so minutely 
as to imprison candidates for the council within too 
narrow limits. It should not be necessary, however, 



104 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

for a councilman to live in the precinct he repre- 
sented. Every assembly should have the privilege 
of ranging over the whole city to find the man best 
suited to its purpose. The very minuteness of the 
subdivisions would tend to break down the per- 
nicious American habit of the localization of candi- 
dacies. A representative of some kind can always 
be found in a ward, and consequently, even when 
the requirement is not enforced by law, there is a 
tendency to confine candidates within ward lines. 
But the proposed precincts would be so small that it 
would often be necessary to go outside of them to 
find somebody at once willing to serve and able to 
make a creditable appearance before the voters, and 
the good results of this practice would lead to its 
extension in other directions. When the people 
once became accustomed to the workings of the 
new system, they would draw the best men into the 
public service, wherever they might be found. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

TOWN AND COUNTY GOVERNMENT. 

The principles already developed are equally 
applicable throughout the whole range of govern- 
ment in this country, from that of the rural township 
to that of the nation, and need only modifications in 
details to fit them to any particular case. 

In cities it is easy to carve out precincts of approx- 
imately equal size as the electoral units. In the 
rural districts regard must be paid to historical, 
topographical, and industrial conditions. When a 
certain community has been in the habit of consid- 
ering itself as an independent political entity, it is 
not well to cut it up because it has more than five 
hundred voters, or to tack it to another because it 
has less. Experience in New England has shown 
that a town can be satisfactorily governed by a single 
town-meeting when fifteen hundred voters, or even 
more, are entitled to take part in the assembly, and 
other towns govern themselves with fifty voters or 
less. As a rule, however, it would be advisable to 
introduce the precinct system when the number of 
electors ran much over a thousand. In these mat- 
ters a very wide latitude should be allowed to the 
discretion of localities, and the central legislative 
power should interfere as little as possible with the 
wishes of the people immediately concerned, 

(105) 



106 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

It is the custom in most American States to treat 
towns and counties as the creatures of the legisla- 
tures. Their legal powers are exhaustively enu- 
merated, and no action can be taken that is not 
expressly provided for. I should reverse this rule. 
Local government is nearer to the people than any 
other, and therefore, if properly organized, ought to 
have less need of restrictions in dealing with mat- 
ters within its sphere. The people of a given 
township know their own local needs and capacities 
better than the members of the legislature from the 
other end of the State. If they feel that it would be 
to their advantage to maintain a town library, or 
gymnasium, or bath-house, or street-car line, or 
electric-light plant, or art gallery; to encourage 
manufactures by exemption from taxation; to estab- 
lish labor stations for unemployed workmen, or not 
to do any of these things, it ought to be in their 
power to do or not to do them without being in any 
way hampered by general or special laws. Each 
town and county should be a sovereign republic in 
its local affairs, subject only to the general legal 
safeguards of property, contracts, and order. The 
recognition of this principle would immensely sim- 
plify the work of the State legislatures, and remove 
a prolific source of intrigue and corruption. There 
are no more unscrupulous lobbyists than the repre- 
sentatives of local interests, appealing to an indiffer- 
ent legislature for privileges that ought to be 
entirely within the discretion of the people immedi- 
ately concerned, and there is no more corrupting 
influence in the legislature than the habit of acting 



TOWN AND COUNTY GOVERNMENT. 107 

on matters upon which there can be no effective 
public opinion among the constituents of the mem- 
bers to enforce honest decisions. Some of the most 
venal members of the New York legislature are 
rural representatives who purchase, by absolute 
fidelity to the interests of their own constituents, an 
unlimited license to " strike "the corporations and 
tax-payers of the great cities. It is never safe to 
entrust a law-maker with jurisdiction over questions 
in which the public opinion to which he is immedi- 
ately responsible is not directly interested. 

There is little new to be said about the govern- 
ment of the rural town. Its main lines have been 
admirably worked out in the New England town 
meeting. It would probably be found best, how- 
ever, to assimilate the town meeting in its methods 
of action to the precinct assemblies already pro- 
posed for cities. Instead of coming together once a 
year for an all day's session, in which thirty or 
forty subjects are to be disposed of, and a dozen 
officers elected, the citizens could act more effec- 
tively by meeting once a month or oftener in the 
evening, and dealing with a few subjects at a time. 
The primary assembly, or, as it would probably 
continue to be called, the town meeting, should 
exercise the legislative and control the executive 
management of the town government. In addition 
it should perform the other functions already 
described as belonging to the precinct assemblies in 
the cities. It should elect a member of the county 
board of supervisors, take its part in the election of 
members of the State legislature and of Congress, 



108 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

and serve as the organ for the expression of the 
popular will through the initiative and referendum. 
The executive officers of the town would be in effect 
a committee of the town meeting, just as the British 
Cabinet is a committee of the House of Commons. 
Each town should determine for itself what officers 
it needed, and the scope of their duties. It would 
probably be found best in all cases, however, to 
have one chief executive officer or town president, 
who would appoint and remove all the minor offi- 
cials. There should also be a board of trustees to 
attend to all legislative business that did not require 
the action of the people. In towns large enough to 
be divided into three or more precincts, one trustee 
should represent each precinct ; in those in which 
all the voters met in a common assembly all the 
trustees should be elected at large. In towns of the 
former class the trustees should have the power of 
appointing and removing the chief executive ; in 
those of the latter class this power should be lodged 
in the town meeting. Of course in any case every 
trustee would hold his' office at the pleasure of the 
popular assembly that had elected him. 

In the government of the small towns the people 
could conveniently perform a much larger share of 
public duties than in that of great cities. Every 
considerable expenditure of money, all street 
improvements, all questions of license and local 
taxation, and all important contracts, could properly 
be left to their determination. In towns divided 
into several precincts, it would probably be found of 
advantage to give each precinct assembly the con- 



TOWN AND COUNTY GOVERNMENT. 109 

trol of such of its own street and road improvements 
as were to be paid for by special assessments on the 
adjoining property. This would bring such work 
nearer to the persons who had to pay for it, and it 
would -develop a spirit of emulation among the 
different sections of the town which would tend to 
bring them all up to the level of the most pro- 
gressive. 

The government of counties is already developing 
over a great part of the United States along the 
right lines. We already have the board of super- 
visors, which needs only to be suitably combined 
with the town meeting to be a satisfactory organ of 
legislation. In California the initiative for county 
ordinances has just been introduced, and fifty per 
cent of the voters have now the power to compel 
the submission to the people of any measure they 
desire to have adopted. The principal defects of 
the best forms of county organization now existing 
are that the responsibility of the supervisors to 
their constituents is not fully secured, and that 
there is no unity in the executive government. In 
some States the supervisors are elected by artificial 
districts so large as not to permit any common feel- 
ing or interests among their inhabitants. In Califor- 
nia, for instance, counties larger than any New 
England State, except Maine, are governed by five 
supervisors, each of whom represents an unorganized 
district so extensive that the people of one end of 
it are strangers to those of the other. As the elec- 
tions are for four years, there is hardly more 
effective responsibility than in the United States 



110 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

Senate. In New York, where each town has its 
supervisor and the elections are annual, the situa- 
tion is much better in this respect, but it is still not 
all that could be desired. Every member of the 
board should represent a body of men capable of 
getting together in a common assembly and dis- 
cussing his character and conduct, and he should 
hold his place as long as he satisfied this assembly, 
and no longer. If every precinct had a supervisor, 
and the precincts averaged five hundred voters 
each, a county of twenty-five thousand inhabitants, 
or five thousand voters, would have ten supervisors. 
In very populous counties, composed of great cities 
with fringes of suburban towns, such as Cook 
County, Illinois; Kings County, New York; Alle- 
gheny County, Pennsylvania, and Hamilton County, 
Ohio, the members of the city council could also 
act as supervisors, the representatives of the outside 
precincts meeting with them at fixed times for the 
transaction of county business. 

The various county executive officers are now 
usually elected independently. The same reasons 
that call for unity and unevadible responsibility in 
other spheres of government call for them equally 
here. 

It would be as easy to have a single executive 
head for a county as for a city or State, and this 
head, himself responsible to the supervisors, and 
through them to the people, should have the 
appointment and removal of all his subordinates. 
Two officials, however, should be free from his 
control. One is the auditor, who should be elected 



TOWN AND COUNTY GOVERNMENT. Ill 

by the whole people, as in cities, and for similar 
reasons. The atmosphere of county seats breeds 
"court-house ring's" with peculiar facility, and the 
people should have the assistance of an entirely 
independent expert in checking the financial opera- 
tions of their servants. The other is the sheriff, 
who should not be elected either by the people of 
the county or by the supervisors, but, as all our 
recent experience shows, should be appointed by, 
and responsible to, the governor of the State. It is 
the duty of the sheriff to preserve the peace and 
execute the laws without fear or favor. It is the 
duty of a roadmaster to make such road improve- 
ments and repairs as the people of the vicinage 
desire, but it is not the duty of a sheriff to give so 
much protection to life and property as may suit his 
neighbors. He must enforce the laws absolutely to 
their fullest extent. Though all the voters in the 
county may join a lynching party, or a whitecap 
raid, or a mob of riotous strikers, he must not 
hesitate to preserve the peace, and if necessary to 
summon the military power of the State to his aid. 
To ask this of him when he is dependent for office 
upon the men his duty requires him to suppress is 
to put too great a strain on ordinary human nature. 
Some men bear the test nobly, but from Fire Island 
to Sacramento the country is full of warnings that it 
is unsafe to leave the enforcement of the laws to 
local sentiment. The sheriff should be a State 
officer acting within the county, not a county officer 
executing the laws of the State. If that were the 
rule, disorder would generally be suppressed before 



112 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

it had time to grow into insurrection. With this 
one exception there should be as little interference 
as possible with local self-government. Within its 
own sphere the county should be a democratic 
republic, just as the town should be in its smaller 
sphere and the State and nation in their larger 
ones. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE STATE LEGISLATURE. 

In the light of the experience of the past thirty 
years it is amusing to read of the lofty expectations 
cherished by the founders of our political system 
with regard to the legislatures of the States. They 
were to be composed of the wisest and purest men 
of each commonwealth, selected by their neighbors 
for conspicuous merit, and standing as vigilant 
sentinels between the people and the encroaching 
power of the federal government. In short, they 
were to be and to do everything which the modern 
legislature most palpably is not and does not. 

The failure of our current political methods is 
more marked in the State legislatures than any- 
where else except in the government of cities. 
All of these bodies are ignorant and inefficient 
— most of them are corrupt. They are usually 
controlled by corporations and bosses. They are so 
densely stupid that if properly managed they can 
even be cajoled into passing good laws. Last year 
the legislature of California passed one of the best 
and most stringent corrupt practices acts in the 
world without knowing what it was doing. The 
bill was quietly prepared on the outside and put 
through as a harmless concession to a few innocent 
reformers who might as well be humored in their 

8 (113) 



114 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

unpractical theories. The dismay of the politicians 
when they found out what they had really done was 
pathetic. 

Legislatures are corrupt and ignorant because, 
under our present methods, able and honest men 
can not usually get into them without sacrifices for 
which the honor of membership is not sufficient 
reward ; because men of a low order of intelligence 
and morality can easily reach them by methods well 
within their capacity and congenial to their disposi- 
tion, and because when a man is once in, there are 
the strongest temptations to corruption, and hardly 
any pressure, outside of his own conscience, in the 
direction of honesty. In most of the States the leg- 
islative sessions are biennial. A member is elected 
in November, goes to the State capital in January, 
and sits for sixty or ninety days. His constituents 
have no hold on him, and, unless he represents a 
country district, most of them do not know his name. 
He is one of a crowd, and the session expires before 
he has produced a clear impression on the public 
mind. If he takes the precaution to avoid mixing 
himself in some conspicuous scandal, he can " trans- 
act business" every day with corporations and syn- 
dicates without getting himself especially talked 
about. After the close of the session he has over a 
year and a half of retirement before the next elec- 
tion, and long before that time expires nineteen 
voters out of twenty have forgotten his existence. 

Moreover, the organization of the Legislature fur- 
nishes the most perfect possible shield for miscon- 
duct. All laws must have the concurrence of two 



THE STATE LEGISLATURE. 115 

houses and the governor. In the case of good bills, 
nothing is easier than to smother them in committee 
in one house or the other, or to let them fall between 
the houses through disagreements on points of 
detail, or to crowd them out by other business, or to 
put them in such shape as to invite a veto. No indi- 
vidual member can be held responsible for the fail- 
ure to accomplish results in such circumstances. 
When bad bills are to be passed, the evasion of 
responsibility is equally easy. In the tumult of the 
closing hours of a session almost anything can be 
slipped through without fixing the blame definitely 
upon the average member. At the worst, the 
responsibility for the enactment of such measures 
is divided among the members of both houses and 
the governor, and the share that belongs to any 
ordinary private in the legislative ranks is too small 
to be burdensome. 

These evils can be corrected by precisely the same 
methods that have been suggested for the correc- 
tion of corresponding ones in the cities. The Legis- 
lature, like the city council, must be brought into 
immediate and permanent contact with the individ- 
ual voter, who must retain an unbroken control over 
its action. There must be no division of responsi- 
bility between two houses and an executive with the 
veto power. The arguments for a second chamber 
lose their force in any case when the people retain 
the right of reviewing legislation through the refer- 
endum, but such a chamber is especially undesirable 
when it takes the form of a State Senate. Bad as 
the average legislature is, the Senate is almost inva- 



116 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

riably its worst element. It is a pestiferous little 
cabal, always open to corrupt influences, always 
ready to strangle good bills and smooth the way for 
bad ones. 

The bicameral system was defended by Madison 
in the Federalist on six grounds : 

First. That a Senate " doubles the security of the 
people by requiring the concurrence of two distinct 
bodies in schemes of usurpation or perfidy, where 
the ambition or corruption of one would otherwise 
be sufficient." It is obvious that this argument 
has weight only as against a single assembly of 
unchecked powers. The function here assigned to 
the Senate can be much better, more effectively, and 
more certainly performed by the people through the 
referendum. 

Second. That "the necessity of a Senate is not 
less indicated by the propensity of all single and 
numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse of sud- 
den and violent passions, and to be seduced by 
factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious 
resolutions." Clearly the right of re vie w at the 
polls would be equally effective here. I may men- 
tion a curious incident illustrating the comparative 
value of the two proposed checks on " sudden and 
violent passions." During the last session of the 
legislature of California a Sacramento newspaper 
criticised the conduct of the members in private 
life. As soon as the infuriated legislators came 
together after reading the articles the Assembly 
proposed a constitutional amendment removing the 
seat of government from Sacramento to San Jose. 



THE STATE LEGISLATURE. 117 

The Senate, which exists for the purpose of moderat- 
ing'' sudden and violent passions " and preventing 
the passage of " intemperate and pernicious resolu- 
tions," promptly concurred in the resolution by 
more than the requisite two-thirds vote, and so far 
as the legislature could accomplish it, a public 
investment of five million dollars and the estab- 
lished business interests of an important city were 
sacrificed for a newspaper squib. The Supreme 
Court subsequently decided that the resolution had 
not been passed in the proper form, and was there- 
fore void, but if it had been allowed to reach the 
polls the people would have corrected the reckless- 
ness of their representatives. 

Third. That a single popular assembly would 
have " a want of due acquaintance with the objects 
and principles of legislation. It is not possible that 
an assembly of men, called for the most part from 
pursuits of a private nature, continued in appoint- 
ment for a short time, and led by no permanent 
motive to devote the intervals of public occupation 
to a study of the laws, the affairs, and the compre- 
hensive interest of the country, should, if left 
wholly to themselves, escape a variety of important 
errors in the exercise of their legislative trust." 
This point would be fully covered by the election 
of members for indefinite terms. It is not met at 
all by the current methods of electing State Senators, 
few of whom have over six months of actual serv- 
ice in their entire time of office. 

Fourth. That " the mutability in the public 
councils arising from a rapid succession of new 



118 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

members, however qualified they may be, points out, 
in the strongest manner, the necessity of some 
stable institution in the government. ' ' This assumes, 
of course, the complete renewal of the assembly at 
short intervals. On the plan of gradual renewal 
proposed, the assembly would be much more stable 
in its composition than any senate is now. 

Fifth. That " without a select and stable member 
of the government the esteem of foreign powers 
will not only be forfeited by an unenlightened and 
variable policy, proceeding from the causes already 
mentioned, but the national councils will not possess 
that sensibility to the opinion of the world which is 
perhaps not less necessary in order to merit than it 
is to obtain its respect and confidence." These con- 
siderations, of course, apply chiefly to national 
affairs, but in any case they are fully met by the 
proposed method of election and tenure of office. 

Sixth. That without a senate there would be a 
"want, in some important cases, of a due respon- 
sibility in the government to the people, arising 
from that frequency of elections which in other 
cases produces this responsibility." Clearly this 
objection is totally irrelevant to an assembly whose 
members serve during good behavior. 

The principles already developed in treating of 
city councils apply equally well to the composition 
of State legislatures. If we assume the State to 
be divided into precincts averaging five hundred 
voters each, any State containing less than two 
hundred and fifty thousand voters, or say one mill- 
ion two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants, 



THE STATE LEGISLATURE. 119 

could conveniently allow each precinct to elect a 
member of the single representative assembly which 
would constitute its legislature. Nearly half of the 
States of the Union would come in this class at 
present, and their legislatures would range in size 
from about twenty-five to five hundred members 
each. The latter number may be taken as the 
highest effective working limit, and it would prob- 
ably be found best in practice to set the limit lower. 
In the more populous States, two, three, four, or 
more adjacent precincts would elect a joint repre- 
sentative. The same rule would be followed in the 
smaller States in the case of country precincts con- 
taining much less than the average number of 
inhabitants. A representative, once elected, would 
hold his place until recalled by his constituents. 
He could be called upon at any time to give an 
account of his conduct before the voters of his 
district in their primary assemblies. If he repre- 
sented a single precinct, the assembly of that pre- 
cinct would have the right to revoke his credentials 
whenever he ceased to give satisfaction ; if he rep- 
resented several precincts, a motion for his recall 
could be made in any assembly of the district, and 
if it prevailed there, would have to be voted upon 
by all the other assemblies of the district. The 
acts of the Legislature would not be subject to exec- 
utive veto, but any measure on which the governor, 
or one-fifth of the members of the Legislature, or 
one-tenth of the precinct assemblies of the State, 
demanded the referendum would have to be sub- 
mitted to popular vote before becoming a law. 



120 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

The Legislature would elect the governor, and, by 
a two-thirds vote, after two months' notice, could 
remove him. The reasons for granting this power, 
and the safeguards against its abuse, would be the 
same as in the case of the appointment and removal 
of mayors by the city councils, and of executive 
heads in general by the corresponding legislative 
bodies. The heads of the principal departments of 
the State government would have seats in the Leg- 
islature, without votes, and would be consulting 
members of the committees dealing with the sub- 
jects under their charge. 

It is certain that under this system the average 
member of the State assembly would hold his place 
for many years. He would be able to acquire a 
thorough familiarity with the workings of the State 
government, as well as with the practical methods of 
legislation. Not being under obligation to any boss 
for his seat, nobody could sell his vote except him- 
self. But if he sold his vote the fact would imme- 
diately become known to his constituents, to whom 
he would not be a casual stranger, but an intimate 
acquaintance. He would be in danger of recall, and 
recall would mean, not the loss of the fag-end of a 
cheap sixty-day job, but the ruin of the promise of 
a long and honorable career. Besides, a bribed vote 
would be not only dangerous, but useless, for a 
reasonable suspicion of such a thing would lead 
at once to a demand for the referendum on the 
measure in whose interest it appeared to be cast. 
In such circumstances nobody would be offering 
money for votes, and the members would be sub- 



THE STATE LEGISLATURE. 121 

ject to no temptation. Thus the Legislature would 
improve, both in ability and in character. 

The length of the sessions would be a question to 
be determined by the needs of each State. Whether 
short or long, they should be held at least once a 
year, and the Legislature should be considered a 
continuous body, in which measures once introduced 
would retain their standing until finally disposed of. 
Biennial sessions are popular now, simply because 
legislatures can not be trusted, and their meetings 
are considered public calamities that should be 
incurred as seldom as possible. The business of the 
State often suffers by a two years' delay, and if the 
law-making bodies were able and honest there would 
be no more reason for limiting their sessions to alter- 
nate years than for doing the Same thing in the case 
of a board of directors of a railroad. The conditions 
of modern life change so rapidly that when a 
growing State is bound in legislative ligaments that 
can not be relaxed except at brief intervals two 
years apart, there is certain to be distress. 

That legislative business should be continuous 
rather than spasmodic is a proposition that needs 
little argument. More time and energy are wasted 
in State legislatures, and in Congress, on measures 
which get partly through, and fail for want of time, 
than are devoted to those which finally become laws. 
There are bills in Congress which have appeared at 
regular intervals for twenty, thirty, or fifty years, 
have advanced as far as favorable committee reports, 
or even passage by one house or the other, and then 
have fallen in the ruck of crowded-out measures at 



122 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

the end of the short session, to be revived in the 
next Congress, and laboriously helped through the 
same preliminary work as before, with the same 
futility. When a legislature meets once in two 
years, for a ninety-day session, organizes itself as a 
new body, receives every suggested project of law 
in the form of an entirely new bill, and appoints its 
committees to investigate all these measures from 
the beginning as if they had never been heard of 
before, it has not much time left for the actual con- 
sideration of many bills on their merits. If it were 
a permanent body, perpetually changing its indi- 
vidual membership, but never losing its own corpo- 
rate identity ; if its officers and committees retained 
their places until discharged, and if a measure once 
placed on its calendar were certain of being event- 
ually reached, considered, and disposed of, an enor- 
mous amount of wasted time would be saved, 
heartsick advocates of mildewed legislation would 
be relieved of suspense, the frenzied orgy of law- 
making by which lobbyists profit at the end of every 
session would be dispensed with, and new needs 
would no longer be obstructed by the debris of past 
failures. 

A legislature so constituted would be trusted by 
the people, and it would deserve the trust. If, by any 
chance, the public confidence were ever betrayed, 
the people would always have a remedy within easy 
reach. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE STATE EXECUTIVE. 

The American lack of system and responsibility 
in government is carried to the last extreme in the 
organization of the executive authority of the 
States. Some States are administered in a less 
chaotic manner than others, but as a rule the 
governing power is cut up into so many discon- 
nected and unrelated pieces that it is impossible 
either to preserve harmony among them or to 
maintain any approach to an effective responsibility 
for misconduct. The governor is supposed to be 
the supreme executive head, but his nominal sub- 
ordinates, in most cases, are absolutely independent 
of him. They hold their places by the same tenure 
by which he holds his own ; they are elected at the 
same time, serve for the same terms, and are subject 
to removal by the same process of impeachment. 
Sometimes the unity of the administration is still 
further broken up, and responsibility still further 
obscured, by the ingenious device of making the 
terms overlap. The governor and some of his 
assistants are elected at one time, and the other 
heads of departments a year or two years later. In 
this way the last shred of public control over the 
government is eliminated. When the governor 
and all the State officers are elected at once, and all 

(123) 



124 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

happen to belong to the same party, it is possible to 
exercise a sort of clumsy justice by turning out the 
party if anything goes wrong in any department. 
But if only half the officers are elected at once, and 
things go wrong during the next two years, and 
then the other party gets the remainder of the 
officials, and they misbehave, too, the hold-overs of 
the first party continuing their misconduct, how 
is justice to be wreaked the next time ? 

The administration of national affairs, imperfect 
as it is, is undeniably better than that of the average 
State government, and this superiority can hardly 
come from anything else than the concentration of 
executive power in the hands of the President. If 
the governor of a State were given the right to 
appoint and remove his subordinates there would 
be a great gain in administrative efficiency. But 
there would still be something lacking. The gov- 
ernor would regulate the minor officials, but who 
would regulate the governor ? His responsibility, 
under the present system, would be limited to the 
possibility of impeachment for crime, and of defeat 
for reelection at the end of his term. If he kept 
clear of criminal offenses and did not expect to be 
reelected, there would be no way of reaching him. 
Incompetency, reckless mismanagement, inexcus- 
able complaisance toward unfaithful subordinates, 
or even corruption in many of its most dangerous 
forms, might endanger the public safety without 
subjecting the governor to impeachment, or hasten- 
ing the slow progress of his official term. To be 
sure, his party could be punished for his misdeeds 



THE STATE EXECUTIVE. 125 

at the next election, but this form of postponed 
vicarious atonement would neither afford relief 
from present evils nor insure against their repeti- 
tion under the new administration. 

What is needed is just such a continuous responsi- 
bility on the part of the governor himself to some 
superior power as he should have the right to 
enforce on his subordinates. An unfaithful clerk 
can be disciplined, not through a party defeat at 
the end of four years, but personally and at once, 
by an immediate dismissal. An unfaithful head of 
department or governor should be brought to account 
in the same way. The proper authority to remove 
the head of department would be the governor. The 
proper authority to remove the governor would be 
the people. As, under the system of continuous leg- 
islative responsibility described in the last chapter, 
the people would at all times be faithfully repre- 
sented in the Legislature, which they are not now, 
they could safely allow the Legislature to act for 
them in maintaining their control over the executive. 
The possibility of the abuse of this trust by the rep- 
resentatives could be prevented by requiring two 
months' notice of the removal of the governor, as in 
the case of the mayors of cities. 

There is no reason for any material structural dif- 
ference between the government of a State and that 
of a city on the one hand, or that of the nation on 
the other. At the last census there were twenty- 
eight States with smaller populations than the city 
of New York, and four with more inhabitants each 
than the Union had at the time of the Revolu- 



126 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

tion. Several European kingdoms are less impor- 
tant in every way than the principal American 
States. The State governments have to deal with 
education, police, and justice, as those of cities do, 
and they have their armies, lands, and internal 
improvements, and work in aid of labor, agricul- 
ture, and mining, like the government of the 
nation. There are State and national bureaus of 
labor, State and national railroad commissioners, 
State and national weather bureaus, and State and 
national supervision of banks. The form of admin- 
istration that produces the best results in one sphere 
ought to produce them, in the other. 

Perhaps the most glaring example of the ineffi- 
ciency of the present methods of government in the 
States is to be found in the attempts to regulate 
railroads. The favorite machinery for this purpose 
is a railroad commission ; in some cases having 
merely advisory powers, and in others invested 
with despotic authority. Without such authority 
it is impossible to compel obedience to the decisions 
of the commission, but when it is given it is found 
almost impossible to prevent its abuse. In California 
the commissioners are elected for four years, and 
although the system was created by the new consti- 
tution of 1879, f° r the express purpose of restraining 
the exactions of a single corporation, the people have 
never succeeded in all the fifteen years that have 
since elapsed in electing a commission which that 
corporation has been unable to control. Rampant 
anti-monopoly demagogues; substantial, conserva- 
tive citizens, and machine politicians have all been 



THE STATE EXECUTIVE. 127 

tried, and all have succumbed without a struggle to 
the arguments of the railroad lobby. The railroad 
commission system has been wrecked by the one per- 
vading political vice of irresponsibility. If, instead of 
a headless board, intrenched in office for four years, 
there had been one expert commissioner, appointed 
by the governor, holding his place during good 
behavior, and subject to questions in a legislature, 
itself in immediate touch with the people, one of 
three things would have happened. The commis- 
sioner would have done what the people wanted 
done, or he would have convinced them that they 
were wrong and he was right, or there would have 
been a new commissioner. 

The pest of executive boards, from which the 
national government is comparatively free, but 
which plays such an important part in the demor- 
alization of politics in the cities, is peculiarly preva- 
lent in the States. California, to recur again to the 
examples with which I am most familiar, has com- 
missions to look after railroads, State prisons, asy- 
lums, reformatories, harbors at three different ports, 
pilotage at three ports, the Yosemite Valley, the 
State Capitol, fish, health, dentistry, pharmacy, vet- 
erinary, medicine, State burial grounds, horticulture, 
viticulture, agriculture, silk culture, mining, educa- 
tion, arbitration, banks, building and loan associa- 
tions, claims, and equalization of taxes. 

The result of all this subdivision of powers is 
extravagance and general mismanagement. The 
superfluity of boards and commissions to do the 
work that ought to be done by single officers, inten- 



128 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

sifies the obscurity, which is the worst of the dete- 
riorating influences to which our present State 
administrations are subject. At best our State offi- 
cials are too much in the dark. They are farther 
from the people than almost any other class of pub- 
lic servants. Cabinet officers at Washington work in 
a comparative blaze of light, and even in the govern- 
ment of cities the proceedings of unfaithful street 
superintendents and police commissioners attract 
considerable attention. But the State capital, except 
when the Legislature is in session, is under the obser- 
vation neither of the individual voter nor of the 
press. It is a retired nook, in which officials who 
avoid glaring scandals may do or neglect almost 
anything without bringing themselves into notice. 
If at every session of the Legislature any member 
could demand a public explanation from any head 
of a State department of anything suspicious in 
the conduct of his office; if an unsatisfactory expla- 
nation would throw the burden of approving or 
punishing mismanagement upon the governor, who 
would have the power of removal and would 
be himself responsible to the Legislature for the 
way in which he exercised it or failed to exercise it, 
and if the members of the Legislature themselves 
held their places at the pleasure of their constitu- 
ents, there would be a substantial increase in the 
inducements to a faithful performance of duty. 
There would be light then where there is darkness 
now, and it is reasonable to suppose that the same 
law of human nature which now breeds deeds 
appropriate to darkness would then engender those 
that could thrive in the light. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 

Congress is at once the best and the worst of ottr 
various legislative bodies. It contains the highest 
average of ability ; it is much above the ordinary 
level in honesty ; it has members representing 
almost all shades of opinion, and it exhibits con- 
siderable independence and sometimes a fair degree 
of capacity for constructive statesmanship. But 
these merits are balanced by grave faults. Con- 
gress, like almost all other national parliaments, is 
clogged with business to such an extent that it is 
ceasing to be either a deliberative or a working body. 
At both ends of the Capitol true debate is almost 
extinct — crushed out in the House by the pressure 
of the legislative machinery, and drowned out in 
the Senate by floods of inconsequential garrulity. 
Of the thousands of bills introduced at every ses- 
sion, the vast majority relate to matters of no public 
importance. Most of them deal with small private 
claims, which should never come before Congress 
at all in separate form, but should be dealt with by 
a special tribunal; those which passed the scrutiny 
of the court being subsequently approved by Con- 
gress in a general bill, and the rest being dropped. 
Time is wasted in every conceivable way, and the 
result is that the great measures of public policy, 

9 (129) 



130 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

which should absorb the attention of the national 
legislative body, are hurriedly considered in the 
intervals between trivialities. 

In dealing with possible improvements in Con- 
gressional organization and methods, I shall treat 
the subject from two standpoints — first that of the 
government as at present organized; and second, 
that of the government as it would be if it were 
symmetrically reorganized on the lines laid down in 
previous chapters. Such a reorganization would be 
the work of a long time, and meanwhile the need 
for immediate reform is pressing. I shall first con- 
sider, therefore, the changes that may be readily 
made in the composition and procedure of Congress 
as it now exists, without the need of constitutional 
amendments or any radical transformation in the 
habits of the people. 

The great evil that afflicts Congress, in common 
with almost all other national parliaments, is that it is 
an amateur body set to do professional work. There 
is no work more complicated or more exacting than 
that of legislation, and yet it is taken up confidently 
by lawyers and merchants who never gave it a 
thought before their election, who treat it as a minor 
avocation during their terms, and who drop it as 
soon as they go home. The first requisite to raising 
the character of Congressional work is to make the 
members take it seriously. To do this effectively 
the term of office ought to be lengthened, or, better 
still, made indefinite, but this would require a con- 
stitutional amendment, and much can be done with- 
out it. As the term is so short, it is all the more 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 131 

important that every moment of it should be utilized. 
At present a new House comes into existence on the 
fourth of March. Unless called in extra session it 
meets for the first time in the following December, 
nine months later. Its organization is not com- 
pleted before the Christmas holidays, when it goes 
home for two weeks. Sometimes it spends an addi- 
tional month or two in discussing its rules. It takes 
the committees until about the middle of April to 
mature their projects of legislation, and in the inter- 
val the House kills time. Unless a tariff bill or some 
other important political measure demands attention, 
the general appropriation bills absorb most of the 
time until the end of June and often longer, leaving 
new legislation to slip into such crannies as it may 
find. Congress always tries to adjourn as early as 
July, if possible, and business other than political is 
ruthlessly sacrificed in the effort. In December it 
comes together again. Little is usually accom- 
plished before the Christmas holidays, and the 
remaining two months of the term are monopolized 
by the appropriation bills and such fag-ends of 
legislation as can be squeezed in between conference 
reports. 

It is obvious that little could be accomplished 
under such conditions, even if Congressional pro- 
cedure were otherwise well adapted to facilitate the 
transaction of important business, which it decidedly 
is not. If the Secretary of the Treasury, appointed 
in March, first visited his office in the following 
December, got down to work in April, knocked off 
in July, began again in January, and retired in 



132 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

March in favor of a successor who would not think 
it necessary to look at the office until the next 
December, the financial interests of the Government 
would be likely to suffer. The interests in charge 
of Congress are certainly no less important than 
those in charge of the Secretary of the Treasury. 
The only difference is that the secretary's duties 
are taken seriously and those of Congress are not. 

Every Senator and Representative should consider 
himself in the public service, precisely as the Presi- 
dent is, or a member of the Cabinet, or a clerk in a 
department. Congress should sit on every working 
day in the year, except during such short vacations 
as would be considered reasonable for a business 
man to allow to his employes. Meeting on the 
fourth of March, the House should complete its 
organization during that month, and it would then 
have twenty-three months of its term remaining for 
the orderly transaction of business. By diligent 
application it would be possible to pass the appro- 
priation bills by the end of June, but it would be 
better to make the fiscal year coincide with the cal- 
endar year. This would give ample time for the 
consideration of the appropriations, and would avoid 
statistical confusion. 

This simple expedient would double the working 
time of Congress. To increase it still further, the 
number of members of the House should be reduced. 
Almost all national parliaments are too large for the 
effective management of so much business as they 
are called upon to handle, and almost all, accordingly, 
find themselves gorged by their own numbers. Un- 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 133 

der the plan of organization heretofore advocated in 
this book, some State and municipal assemblies would 
be even larger than the present national House, but 
this disadvantage would be more than offset by the 
benefits derived from keeping them in close touch 
with the people. Beside, their business would be 
simple and easily managed compared with that dealt 
with by Congress. As long as we retain the present 
irresponsible organization of the national legislature, 
there is no reason why we should not have the 
advantage to be gained from manageable numbers. 
A House of one hundred and fifty members would 
be amply large. On the basis of the last census 
this would give about fifteen representatives to 
New York, nine to Illinois, three to California, 
two to Connecticut, and one each to Colorado, 
Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New 
Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, 
South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, and Wyo- 
ming. Nobody familiar with Congressional meth- 
ods would maintain that such an arrangement 
would not amply represent local interests. Senators 
are now as intently concerned for the advancement 
of legislation demanded by localities in their respect- 
ive States as the representatives from the districts 
immediately affected, and, as a rule, the entire dele- 
gation from a State stands together in such matters. 
It would continue to do so if it were smaller, and, of 
course, if all the delegations were proportionately 
reduced in numbers their relative influence would be 
unchanged. But it would be a good deal better 
for a State to have one strong man in a House of 



134 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

one hundred and fifty members than two weak ones 
in a House of three hundred and fifty-six. 

There can be no doubt of the fact that the reduc- 
tion in numbers would tend to raise the average 
ability of the House. In the first place, ability is not 
a very abundant thing, and it would be easier to 
find one hundred and fifty able men than three hun- 
dred and fifty-six. In the next place, it is always 
harder for a small man to make an impression 
on a large constituency than on a small one. The 
Senate, despite its pernicious method of election, 
reaches a distinctly higher average level of ability 
than the House. The President of the United States 
is usually a man of larger caliber than the governor 
of a State, and the governor of a State than the 
mayor of a city. This increase in the average 
ability of the House would be immensely promoted 
if the members were elected by the method of pro- 
portional representation, as they could easily be 
whenever a State had an odd. number of represent- 
atives exceeding one. In that case the strongest 
men of each party in each State would find their 
way to Congress by a process of natural selection as 
unerring as that which now keeps them at home. 
Under the present system a Representative who fails 
to retain the favor of the politicians of his party in 
a single district is unable to gain a renomination, 
and must retire at the end of his term. This rule 
tends to the progressive elimination of all the men 
of original minds and independent characters. The 
Representative is equally bound to lose his seat, 
regardless of his personal merits, in the event of a 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 135 

change in the political sentiments of a sufficient 
number of his constituents to hold the balance of 
power. The change may not affect more than a hun- 
dred voters out of fifty thousand, but if it is sufficient 
to shift the control of the district it drives an able 
man from public life. Under the proportional plan 
such a man would have no trouble in finding a suf- 
ficient number of admirers in a State to constitute 
an electoral quota, and he would be sure of his seat 
as long as he deserved it. 

The importance of a reduction in the numbers of 
the House, from a business point of view, may be 
illustrated by a simple arithmetical computation. 
Congress is in session, on an average, for about ten 
months of its term. If all this time were devoted 
to business, for six days a week and five hours a day, 
with not an hour wasted in filibustering, prayers, roll- 
calls, holidays, eulogies on deceased members, or other 
traditional devices for avoiding work, this would 
' allow three hours and thirty-six minutes to each Rep- 
resentative and Delegate during the whole of his Con- 
gressional career. As less than half of the total 
working time here assumed is really available, and 
as some of the older members occupy days instead 
of hours, the amount of time actually allowed to the 
average member during his two years' term would 
be liberally estimated at an hour. The value of 
this allotment is almost destroyed by the fact that 
when a member who has not acquired a reputation 
succeeds in getting the floor, only the persons in his 
immediate vicinity can hear what he says. 

In the Fifty-second Congress 10,623 bills and 214 



136 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

joint resolutions were introduced in the House, and 
3,895 bills and 161 joint resolutions in the Senate. 
If there had been seventy-eight thousand working 
minutes available, which was far from being the case, 
the House would have had seven minutes and twelve 
seconds for the consideration of each of its own proj- 
ects, taking no account of those that came over from 
the Senate. As there were single measures whose 
consideration took over a week apiece, it is clear that 
there could not have been much time for the others. 
Of course, the vast majority of the bills introduced 
were never considered at all, and were never meant 
to be considered. They were printed, sent to inter- 
ested constituents as proof that their Representatives 
were working for the good of their districts, and were 
safely put to sleep in committees. They represented 
part of the enormous glut of business caused by 
sending to Washington a mob of small men with no 
other means of securing home popularity than that 
of acquiring reputations for industry in the promo- 
tion of local interests. Much of this glut would be 
relieved by reducing the number and raising the 
standard of the Representatives, and the rest would 
be disposed of by proper provisions against special 
legislation. 

In a House of one hundred and fifty members, 
working eleven months in each year, or twenty-two 
in the course of a two years' term, there would be an 
average of nineteen hours available for each mem- 
ber, which would be ample for the expression of all 
the thoughts that would occur to the ordinary legis- 
lator in the course of his term. Every speaker could 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 137 

be distinctly heard, and it would not be necessary 
for opponents in debate to catch the points to which 
they were replying from next morning's Record, 
In the Fifty-second Congress the number of bills 
and joint resolutions introduced in the House aver- 
aged thirty to each Representative and Delegate. 
There is no reason to believe that this proportion 
would be materially increased if the membership 
were reduced, especially, if the members were elected 
by proportional representation. At this rate a House 
of one hundred and fifty members would have four 
thousand five hundred measures for consideration 
instead of ten thousand eight hundred and thirty- 
seven, and with two thousand eight hundred and 
fifty working hours available there would be thirty- 
eight minutes for each measure instead of seven, 
and this time would be divided among one hundred 
and fifty members instead of among three hundred 
and sixty. Moreover, each roll-call, even if con- 
ducted according to the present wasteful method, 
would occupy only twelve minutes instead of half 
an hour. 

But the present method of voting is an anach- 
ronism, and should be abolished, even if not another 
change were made in the habits of Congress. It is 
more wasteful of time than any other single thing, 
and this wastefulness is deliberately perpetuated in 
the interests of obstruction. The House first votes 
on a proposition viva voce. This is a process of 
extreme celerity. When there is dissatisfaction 
with the announced result or a desire to delay pro- 
ceedings, a division is demanded. Each side is sue- 



138 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

cessively asked to stand up, and the Speaker, rap- 
idly running his eye over the members voting, 
counts them, with the assistance of the handle of 
his gavel. This also is a reasonably expeditious 
method, and does not usually occupy over two min- 
utes. The next step is a call for tellers. When 
this demand is supported by one-fifth of a quorum, 
the Speaker appoints two members who take their 
stand in front of the clerk's desk, and all the rest 
file between them to be counted. At its best this is 
a rather long process, and at its worst it is very 
long. The members sometimes make their appear- 
ance so slowly that a good part of an afternoon is 
consumed in securing enough votes to make a 
quorum. After all this there remains the resource 
of the yeas and nays. On demand of one-fifth of 
those present the clerk is required to call the roll, 
when each member who desires to vote answers to 
his name. The roll is then called a second time, 
for the benefit of those who failed to hear their 
names on the first call. This process takes half an 
hour, and it is sometimes repeated a dozen times in 
one day. On such days, it is hardly necessary to 
remark, no other business is transacted. In the 
Fifty-second Congress the yeas and nays were taken 
in the House two hundred and eighty-four times, 
representing a loss of one hundred and forty-two 
working hours, or twenty-eight working days. As 
every day of the existence of that House, including 
Sundays and holidays, cost the people of the 
United States about $6,285, the expense of 
maintaining this primitive way of voting footed up 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. • 139 

not less than $175,980. This loss was at least 
doubled by the waste of time in voting by other 
methods. In other words, over one-fifth of the 
entire working time of the House was thrown away, 
at a cost of upward of three hundred and fifty thou- 
sand dollars, in the mere mechanical process of ascer- 
taining the opinions of the members. And, in addi- 
tion to the time lost in the act of voting, there were 
fifty-two calls of the House, representing an addi- 
tional waste of about five days and $31,425. All of 
this lost time and money could be saved by a sim- 
ple electrical device by which each member could 
touch a button, and have his vote registered and 
tabulated at the clerk's desk simultaneously with 
those of all the rest. Such devices have not met 
with favor because they would prevent filibuster- 
ing, and that is a privilege which the members do 
not like to abandon. But filibustering is not a 
thing which it is desirable to encourage. It has 
sometimes obstructed bad measures, but it has more 
often defeated good one. It is a species of legis- 
lative anarchy which is totally incompatible with 
orderly democratic government, under which dis- 
putes should be settled by votes and not by contests 
of physical endurance. A further advantage of an 
automatic registering apparatus would be the possi- 
bility of recording every vote on every question. 
At present in all cases in committee of the whole, 
and in the majority of cases in the House, questions 
are decided without calling the roll, and constitu- 
ents have no means of knowing how their repre- 
sentatives have voted. When acting in this irre- 



140 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

sponsible way members often cast votes which, they 
would never dare to cast if their names were to go 
on record. 

Closely connected with the waste of time by 
roll-calls is the wearisome quorum question, which 
keeps Congress in a turmoil through a large part of 
every session. The art of law-making often resolves 
itself into the art of keeping a quorum. This end 
has been reached by the clumsy and dangerous 
method of counting members present and not 
voting, but that plan is manifestly imperfect, since 
a member who does not wish to be counted can 
always evade the necessity by the simple expedient 
of staying away. The whole trouble about quorums 
is an illustration of the remark heretofore sug- 
gested — that Congress does not take its duties 
seriously. There is no such difficulty in a State 
legislature, working under the regulations laid 
down by the newer constitutions. No measure can 
pass either house of such a legislature without the 
recorded affirmative votes of a majority of all the 
members elected. This disposes of all necessity for 
counting a quorum, since the votes of a quorum 
must be actually recorded in the affirmative before 
the measure can pass. The members are obliged 
to vote ; they are subject to severe discipline if they 
refuse, and, as a matter of fact, they do not refuse. 
It would be easy to require every member of Con- 
gress to be present and vote unless excused, under 
penalty of suspension for the first refusal, and 
expulsion for the second, and that would instantly 
settle the quorum problem. 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 141 

The adoption of a system of instantaneous and 
compulsory voting, together with the practice of 
remaining at work throughout an entire congres- 
sional term, instead of through less than half of it, 
would effectually put an end to filibustering without 
the need of suppressing the minority by oppressive 
rules. A still more certain extinguisher of obstruc- 
tion would be the referendum. A minority would 
not venture to fight a measure by blocking public 
business if it had the option of appealing to a 
popular vote. In such a case filibustering would 
be directed, not against an accidental legislative 
majority, but against the people themselves, and 
such a campaign would be neither tolerated nor 
attempted. 

The Congressional Record has been subjected to a 
good deal of unthinking criticism, but it is really 
one of the most useful time-saving devices employed 
by Congress, and well worth its cost. The fact that 
the Senate does not make as free use of it as the 
House, as an outlet for superfluous eloquence, is one 
of the chief reasons for the comparative dilatoriness 
of Senatorial proceedings. Speeches of Senators are 
not printed in the Record unless actually delivered, 
at least in part, while the House is generally glad to 
escape the necessity of listening to its garrulous 
members by granting them "leave to print." The 
result is that the public business is blocked for weeks 
in the Senate to allow prosy Senators to drone out 
interminable dissertations to empty desks, while the 
House consigns its unnecessary speeches to the 
Record without delivery and proceeds to work. 



142 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

The " leave-to-print " device costs a little money 
for composition and paper, but the expense is 
trivial compared to the saving. 

The committee system is another feature of Con- 
gressional practice that has suffered much unde- 
served condemnation. While Mr. Gamaliel Bradford, 
Mr. Woodrow Wilson, and others, have been setting 
the fashion of an indiscriminate admiration of Eng- 
lish methods, such English observers as Sir Henry 
Maine have been impressed with the advantages of 
our own. The habit of specializing the work of a 
deliberative assembly, by assigning the preliminary 
examination and study of different varieties of it to 
different committees, is in strict accordance with 
American traditions, as illustrated in every sphere 
of life and every variety of organization, from 
the trustees of a college to Congress. It can not be 
uprooted, but the practice under it can be improved. 
The criticism that the representation of both parties 
on the committees destroys party responsibility 
ignores the fact that the great bulk of legislation, 
even in the times of the most intense political 
excitement, is non-partisan in character and can 
not be made partisan without destroying half its 
value. The Congressional committee system is sim- 
ply a recognition of the economic principle of the 
division of labor. 

It is beyond question, however, that this division 
has been carried altogether too far. There is no 
necessity for so many committees, except that of pro- 
viding their chairmen with clerks and convenient 
private rooms, and the efficiency of work which is 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 143 

promoted by a moderate specialization is impaired 
by an excessive subdivision. There is no necessity 
for one committee on banking and currency, and 
another on coinage, weights, and measures. These 
two committees, which deal with different branches 
of a single subject, on which it is imperatively neces- 
sary to have a harmonious policy, are often antago- 
nistic, and urge the passage of radically inconsistent 
measures. The work of the committees on military 
affairs and militia ought not to be divided ; nor that 
of the committees on interstate and foreign com- 
merce, merchant marine, and fisheries, railways and 
canals, and Pacific railroads ; nor that of the commit- 
tees on rivers, and harbors, and levees and improve- 
ment of the Mississippi River; nor that of the 
committees on pensions and invalid pensions ; nor 
that of the committees on claims, war claims, and 
private land claims ; nor that of the committees on 
judiciary, and revision of the laws. But the most 
mischievous instance of excessive subdivision of 
work is found in the management of the revenues 
and expenditures of the Government. Here, where, 
if anywhere, there ought to be unity, there are nine 
committees of the house, one with jurisdiction to 
decide how the revenues shall be raised and how 
much shall be levied, and eight to tell how the 
money shall be spent ; and there are three similar 
committees in the Senate. In addition to this, most 
of the other committees have the right to report 
legislation materially affecting the expenditure of 
the Government. For instance, the Committee on 
Invalid Pensions may report a pension bill whose 



144 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

operations will drive the Treasury into actual bank- 
ruptcy, and the committees which are supposed to 
have charge of financial matters have no right to 
interfere. Substantially this very thing has actually 
been done. The Committee on Public Buildings and 
Grounds may report bills authorizing the construc- 
tion of twenty million dollars worth of new post 
offices, and, if they pass, the Committee on Appropri- 
ations has nothing to do but to find the money to 
settle the accounts when they come due. 

Of the committees which are given regular juris- 
diction over the appropriations only one, as a rule, 
pays any attention to the question of keeping the 
Government's total expenses within its income. 
The Committee on Appropriations, which controls 
six of the general appropriation bills, covering 
somewhat less than half of the aggregate expenses 
of the Government, considers itself charged, in some 
degree, with the duty of keeping an eye on the 
national balance-sheet. The other committees con- 
fine their attention to the particular little reserva- 
tions in their exclusive charge. If the army or 
navy appropriation bill compare favorably with that 
of the preceding year, the committee on military 
or naval affairs thinks it has made a creditable 
record, regardless of the general condition of the 
Treasury. When, to this disjointed control of 
expenditures, we add the fact that none of the com- 
mittees that deal with appropriations have anything 
to do with revenues, and the further fact that the 
taxes are not adjusted to the needs of the Govern- 
ment, but are fixed for indefinite periods, and regu- 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 145 

lated by considerations in which fiscal requirements 
play only a secondary part, the confusion and mis- 
management of American finances will need no 
further explanation. 

The way to import order and judicious economy 
into the financial operations of the Government is 
to put all matters relating to revenue and supply 
under a single control. There should be one budget 
committee in the House, of which the Secretary of 
the Treasury should be a consulting member, and 
this committee should have exclusive jurisdiction 
over the national income and expenditure. Instead 
of reporting thirteen separate appropriation bills, 
unconnected with each other or with the revenue 
laws, it should present a complete budget, in which 
the total revenue and the total expenditure would 
be balanced ; any deficit under existing laws being 
made good by increased taxes, and any immoderate 
surplus being prevented by the remission of imposts. 
In England the passage of the appropriations accord- 
ing to the government estimates is made a question 
of confidence, and their alteration by Parliament 
involves the resignation of the ministry, but no such 
sacredness need attach to the work of the budget 
committee here. It would be sufficient to have the 
entire financial operations of the Government for 
the year provided for in one well-considered bill. 
If that were done Congress would not amend the 
measure without good cause, for every important 
amendment would visibly disarrange the whole 
fiscal programme, and would necessitate recasting 
the entire project to restore the balance. No such 



146 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

responsibility is felt now. When the work of one 
committee is upset it is not felt that the work of 
other committees is at all affected, or that the opera- 
tions of the Treasury are embarrassed. When the 
year's balance-sheet exhibits results ranging all the 
way from a deficit of seventy million dollars to a 
surplus of one hundred and fifty million dollars, a 
discrepancy of a few millions more or less in one of 
thirteen disconnected appropriations can not be 
expected to make a very deep impression on the 
Congressional mind. 

Mill's idea of a legislative commission to prepare 
all bills, leaving the parliamentary body nothing to 
do but to accept or reject the measures formulated 
by it, or send them back for amendment, may not be 
practicable in this country, although such a commis- 
sion could doubtless be made useful in Congress 
merely as an agency for putting the crude notions 
of unpracticed members into proper shape, leav- 
ing the assembled legislators all their accustomed 
powers of amendment. But each House should 
certainly have a committee on the harmony of legis- 
lation, whose duty it should be to examine and 
report upon every measure submitted to it, not with 
regard to its merits, but with respect to its relations 
with existing laws. Every bill placed on the cal- 
endar, with a favorable report from any other com- 
mittee, should be referred to this committee before 
action, in order to discover whether it conflicted 
with any previous law, and if so, whether the repeal 
of that law, or of a part of it, would be desirable or 
the reverse. Of course such a committee should be 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 147 

composed of expert jurists, thoroughly familiar, 
not only with federal legislation in all its branches, 
but with the laws of all the States, since it often 
happens that a new national statute produces serious 
local results by its inconsistency with State enact- 
ments or legal customs. A careful examination of 
new bills by a committee of this nature would greatly 
reduce the work of Congress, since it would show a 
large proportion of them to be superfluous, as sub- 
stantially duplicating existing laws, and another 
large proportion to be harmful, as inharmonious 
elements in the legal fabric. 

Those critics to whom the one thing needful for 
the reform of American Congressional practice is 
the creation of a directing and co-ordinating agency, 
like the English Cabinet, may take comfort in the 
reflection that something which bids fair ultimately 
to answer nearly the same purpose is being grad- 
ually developed out of existing materials in a 
natural and purely American way. The House 
Committee on Rules, after forty years of modest 
growth in power, rapidly rose in importance in the 
epoch-making Fifty-first Congress, and still further 
expanded its functions in the Fifty-second and Fifty- 
third Congresses under the impulse of the Demo- 
cratic desire to find some means for the accomplish- 
ment of business without palpably imitating what 
they had so emphatically condemned under the 
Reed regime. Substantially all the important busi- 
ness of the House, aside from that of a routine 
nature, is now under the control of this committee. 
A bill to which there is determined opposition can 



148 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

not even be considered without the consent of the 
Committee on Rules, which sets apart a day for the 
consideration of one measure, refuses to fix a day 
for the consideration of another, and arranges the 
order in which measures shall be taken up and the 
hours at which they shall be finally voted upon, 
in accordance with its views of party policy. Of 
course the special orders reported by the committee 
have to be ratified by the House, but this ratification 
is hardly ever refused. In doubtful cases the com- 
mittee is now accustomed to act in accordance with 
petitions signed by a majority of the members of 
the dominant party, so that the Committee on Rules 
may be considered the organ through which the 
majority acts. It is rapidly assuming the functions 
of the British Cabinet in laying out a programme of 
legislation, and it may very readily become in the 
course of a few years what the British Cabinet would 
be if its members had no executive duties and were 
under no obligation to resign on the defeat of their 
measures. 

A serious interference with the transaction of 
business in Congress is caused by the traditional 
methods of showing respect to the memory of 
deceased members. The death of a Senator or 
Representative always causes more or less loss of 
time, and sometimes absorbs two full working days 
— one when the event is announced, and the other 
when eulogies are delivered. When there is a 
funeral service in the Capitol, the time lost may even 
reach three days. This would be excusable in a 
debating society, whose business, besides being of 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 149 

small importance, is its own affair, but Congress, 
representing the entire nation, has no more right to 
waste the people's time in long-drawn conventional 
grief than it would have to waste their money in the 
same way — which, by the way, it regularly does. It 
would be as reasonable for the whole population 
of the country to stop work for a day upon the 
death of a member of Congress, as for the body 
which transacts the collective business of that 
population to do the same thing. Appropriate reso- 
lutions, brief eulogies, and a committee to attend 
the funeral would be ample testimonials of respect 
without defrauding the public by making every 
death the occasion of a holiday — a holiday, it may 
be mentioned, which the average member does not 
spend in the trappings of woe. 

The physical conditions under which Congress 
works are not favorable to intelligent debate. The 
spaces are too vast, especially in the hall of the 
House, and the members are too widely separated. 
The English plan of having benches with seats for 
only half the members would not work in Washing- 
ton, where the attendance is so much fuller, and the 
total abolition of desks would be a little too severe a 
privation. But the desks might well be reduced to 
half their present liberal proportions, with a view 
to having them serve merely for convenient note- 
taking in discussions instead of for private corre- 
spondence, and compact cushioned benches could 
take the place of expansive revolving chairs. The 
accommodation of the newspaper correspondents in 
the press galleries may illustrate the possibilities in 



150 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

the way of the compression of the unwieldy legislative 
bodies that now sprawl disjointedly over their huge 
halls. If this compression were carried to a sufficient 
extent the members would doubtless acquire the 
habit of doing their letter- writing and newspaper- 
reading at home, or in rooms which could be pro- 
vided for the purpose. 

One of the most wasteful leaks of time in Con- 
gress is the habit of making speeches on all con- 
ceivable topics in total disregard of the pending 
question. This not only dissipates time, but often 
entirely prevents the enlightenment that ought to 
come from a debate. When a certain hour has 
been set for the final vote on the question of 
abolishing the Geological Survey, and a dozen 
members absorb all the intervening time with a 
controversy concerning the effect of the tariff on 
the production of tin plates, the vote has to be 
taken in ignorance of the probable nature of its 
far-reaching results. This abuse could be easily 
checked if custom justified presiding officers in 
calling members to order as soon as they began to 
wander from the question. The rules of the House 
require debaters to confine themselves to the ques- 
tions under discussion, and violations of the rules 
in this respect ought to be checked as promptly as 
in any other. 

It may contribute to a better understanding of 
the question of time-saving in Congress if we con- 
template some of the principal items of loss in 
tabular form. To maintain the House in the Fifty- 
second Congress cost $4,593,922.60. As there were 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 



151 



seven hundred and thirty-one days, including Sun- 
days, in the entire term, the average running 
expense was about $6,285 a day. Dividing the 
time as nearly as practicable according to the 
way in which it was spent, and apportioning the 
cost on this basis, we have : 



CREDIT. 

Days in term, including Sundays 



73i 





DAYS. 


COST. 


Time lost before organization. - 


278 
147 
42 

23 
14 

28 

*3o 


$1,747,230 


Vacations 


923,895 


Sundays during sessions 


263,970 


Other holidays 


144,555 


Honors to deceased members ... 


87,990 


Yeas and nays 


175,980 

"188,550 


Other voting and quorum-hunting 






Total conspicuous losses 


562 


$3,532,170 






Business (outside limit) 


169 


$1,062,165 






Average cost of each working day 




$ 27,183 









* Approximate, but underestimated. 

The average cost of each working day, of course, 
represents the total expense of maintaining the 
House through the entire term, divided by the num- 
ber of working days. 

If all practicable time-saving devices were adopted 
it would be possible to pay some regard to the 
calendars. At present the Congressional calen- 



152 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

dars, except the private calendar of the House, are 
legislative fictions. Measures are supposed to be 
taken from them in their turn, but in practice 
almost every public bill considered is taken up 
under a special order, regardless of its place on the 
nominal programme. If the calendars could be 
once completely cleared, tne work of Congress 
would be lightened for a generation to come, for 
the majority of the bills introduced at the beginning 
of every term are veterans that have been vainly 
appealing for consideration for years or decades in 
the past. 

There is little to be said about reforms peculiarly 
needed by the Senate. The best reform in that 
quarter would be total abolition, but as that is 
impracticable there is little to be done, in addition 
to the improvements suggested for the House, 
except to make such alterations in the rules as 
would enable the majority to transact business, to 
curtail speech-making on the floor by enlarging the 
privilege of printing in the Congressional Record, 
and to change the method of electing Senators. 
The plan of election by State legislatures, which 
seemed to the authors of the Federalist so obvi- 
ously the best conceivable as hardly to need de- 
fense, and which up to twenty or thirty years ago 
appeared to have fully vindicated itself in practice, 
has now unmistakably broken down. It is turning 
out a poorer quality of Senators year by year ; it is 
destroying the Senatorial sense of responsibility, 
and it is steadily degrading the legislatures. When 
a legislature that is to have the privilege of electing 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 153 

a Senator is to be chosen, all considerations of State 
policy are submerged, the proper work of the body 
is lost sight of, and its members are chosen solely 
with a view to their action on the absorbing issue of 
the Senatorship. Often the election expenses of the 
majority are paid by one of the Senatorial candi- 
dates, and when members take office sold in advance 
on one question they are ready to be bought on all 
others. A corrupt Senatorial campaign means a 
corrupt legislative session for all matters of State 
policy. As long as we are saddled with the Senate, 
the only way of mitigating its evils is to have its 
members elected by the people. One other impor- 
tant reform remains to be mentioned. As long as we 
retain the present organization of the Government, 
the terms of Senators, Representatives, and Presi- 
dent should be equalized. The present discrepan- 
cies were intentionally created by the framers of 
the Constitution in the belief that the greatest need 
of the new government was a system of checks 
adequate to prevent rash action on the part of the 
people. Their various devices for attaining this 
object have been altogether too successful. It may 
be desirable to restrain the people from too hasty 
action, but it is certainly not desirable so to tie their 
hands as to prevent any action at all. The disloca- 
tion of power in this country makes it almost 
impossible to initiate and carry out a consistent 
national policy. Of the last ten Congresses only 
three have had even nominal political harmony 
between their branches and with the executive, and 
it is hardly necessary to say that the harmony exist- 



154 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

ing at present is not more than nominal. In no 
case has the formal accord among the Senate, House, 
and President lasted for more than two years, nor 
in all that time has a party in full possession of the 
Government ever developed its policy in Congress 
for as much as a year without being rebuked and 
discouraged at the State elections. If Senators, 
Representatives, and President were all elected for 
four-year terms, beginning and ending simul- 
taneously, the people would have more than three 
chances in ten of having their will executed, and 
Congress would have time to carry out a policy and 
have it in operation long enough to enable it to be 
fairly judged. In addition, the House could clear 
its calendar, instead of rolling the stone of business 
half-way up the hill, and then letting it roll down 
again for its successor to attempt to push up with 
the same results. Chosen under such conditions, 
the branches of government would generally be in 
harmony. As for checks, the all-sufficient brake 
on rash action could be found in the referendum. 

So much for Congress as it is, and as it might be 
made without seriously altering its structure. But 
beyond make-shift reforms is an ultimate ideal, and 
that ideal, it seems to me, is to be found in the reorgan- 
ization of the national legislature on the principles 
already developed in treating of State and local legis- 
latures. We need stability, wisdom, and experience 
in Congress. How can they be secured better than by 
abolishing the term system and substituting a ten- 
ure during good behavior ? We need responsibility 
to the people — not an intermittent, periodical 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 155 

responsibility, but one felt in full vigor every hour. 
What better way of obtaining it can be imagined 
than to give the constituents of every member the 
right to recall him whenever his conduct ceases 
to meet their approval? Through a Congress so 
organized every abuse in the Government could be 
brought within the immediate control of the voters. 

Under this plan, the members of the House would 
be elected by the local primary assemblies, precisely 
as in the case of the members of the State legislatures 
and of the county boards of supervisors. The only 
difference would be that a greater number of assem- 
blies would have to unite in each election. For a 
House of three hundred members, about a hundred 
assemblies of average size would elect a Representa- 
tive. For one of five hundred members, about sixty 
assemblies would form a constituency. Once elected, 
a member would hold his place until recalled. A 
movement for the recall of any member could be 
initiated by the formal vote of any assembly in his 
district, on motion of any qualified voter. The 
proposition having been advanced by one assembly, 
all the others in the district would have to take 
action upon it on a specified date, allowing time for 
the Representative to offer his defense. If the 
recall were carried, the assemblies would immedi- 
ately proceed to a new election by the preferential 
method, elsewhere explained. 

The House thus constituted would remain in ses- 
sion all the year, except during short vacations. 
It would waste no time in periodical reorganiza- 
tions. Its Speaker would remain in office as long 



156 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

as lie retained the confidence of his constituents 
and of the members of the House. Its attaches 
would constitute a permanent staff. The House itself 
would be at once more stable and more responsive 
to public opinion than any legislative body now in 
existence. Its membership would be subject to no 
sweeping revolutions, but would be gradually and 
imperceptibly renewed. At all times the great 
body of the members would be experienced and 
competent legislators, and the apprentices would not 
have to learn their business at the expense of the 
public. The continuous existence of the assembly 
would never be interrupted ; bills would hold their 
place on the calendar until definitely passed or 
rejected, and work once done in connection with any 
measure would never have to be repeated. 

The initiative and referendum would add to the 
security of tenure. Under present conditions, while 
the people of any district would be proud of the dis- 
tinction and influence conferred upon them by the 
possession of such a representative as William L. 
Wilson, most protectionist voters would sacrifice 
those advantages and try to replace Mr. Wilson with 
an inferior man for the sake of carrying out their 
own views upon the tariff. If it were possible to 
take the final settlement of the tariff and all related 
questions out of the hands of Congress, they would 
gladly vote for the retention of the representative 
whose character and ability were worth so much to 
the district. 

Intelligent legislation would be secured, and Con- 
gress would be kept properly in touch with the exec- 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 157 

utive, by the presence of the members of the Cabinet 
in the House, without votes, but with an unlimited 
right of discussion, and subject to the obligation of 
answering any questions asked concerning the oper- 
ations of their departments. The head of each 
department would be a consulting member of the 
committee or committees dealing with his special 
line of work. The Secretary of the Treasury would 
belong to the Finance Committee, which would have 
exclusive jurisdiction over all questions of revenue 
and expenditure. The Secretary of War would be 
attached to the Military Committee ; the Secretary of 
the Navy to the Naval Committee ; the Secretary of 
State to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and so on. 
As these officials would hold office by a much less 
precarious tenure than at present, they would be 
much better acquainted than now with the affairs 
of their respective departments, and there would 
therefore be an assurance that all proposed leg- 
islation would be subjected to expert scrutiny 
before obtaining a favorable report from a com- 
mittee. If, in spite of all the opportunities for 
enlightenment, both in committee and on the floor, 
laws which the executive authorities thought unwise 
were still passed, the President would have no power 
of veto, but he would have the right to demand the 
submission of the measure to the referendum. The 
same test would have to be accorded on demand of 
one-fifth of the members of the House, or of a thou- 
sand primary assemblies, distributed among ten 
States. An appeal could be taken from Congress to 
the people in the case of measures defeated, as well 



158 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

as of those passed, and on the same terms. This 
would be a form of the initiative which would 
answer all practical purposes and would avoid some 
of the disadvantages of the inception of legislation 
by volunteer effort. 

With regard to the Senate, as previously remarked, 
the best reform would be total abolition. Pernicious 
even now, when it has some important functions to 
perform, the Senate would be simply a useless 
excrescence on a system in which the House accu- 
rately mirrored the desires of the people, and in 
which the power of ultimate decision in disputed 
cases rested in the hands of the entire citizenship of 
the nation. But the Constitution has tied our hands. 
By guaranteeing that no State shall be deprived of 
its equal representation in the Senate without its 
own consent, it has made the superfluous second 
chamber an indestructible part of our fabric of gov- 
ernment. But if we must have a Senate, there is no 
reason why it should not be rendered harmless. If 
its membership were reduced to one Senator from 
each State, the equal representation of the States 
would not be affected. If then, it were provided 
that in case of disagreement between the two 
branches of Congress, they should meet together 
and settle the dispute by a joint vote, the diminished 
numbers of the Senate would be swamped by the 
votes of the House. There are too many instances, 
both here* and abroad, of meetings between the two 
houses of legislative bodies in joint convention for 
various purposes, to permit such a scheme to be dis- 
missed as an unfair evasion of the constitutional 



THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE. 159 

safeguards of the Senate. The Senators would have 
no right to complain, for they are elected themselves 
in precisely that way. If, in addition to all this, the 
Senate were deprived of the right of amending 
revenue and appropriation bills, we might consider 
that its teeth had been drawn, and, perhaps in time, 
the small States might consent to the abolition of 
the useless incumbrance. In the meantime, of 
course, the Senators, like Representatives, would be 
elected by the people in their primary assemblies. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE. 

The executive administration of the United States 
Government is carried on by a force of about two 
hundred thousand office-holders. This enormous 
machine is regulated, directly or indirectly, by the 
President. He personally appoints the more impor- 
tant officials, subject to confirmation by the Senate ; 
and the minor ones are chosen by his subordinates, 
the heads of departments. There are the possibili- 
ties of efficient service here, but they are neutral- 
ized by the customs under which the system is 
worked. It is impossible for any man or group of 
men at the head of a government to be personally 
acquainted with the qualifications of two hundred 
thousand minor officials — still less with those of 
the multitudinous applicants for their places. In 
the vast majority of cases the men who hold the 
appointing power must select their subordinates and 
judge of their conduct on the testimony of others. 
That is what the President and the heads of depart- 
ments do. They take advice in the matter of 
appointments, but unfortunately they take it from 
the wrong sources. Instead of relying upon the 
recommendations of the men who have to superin- 
tend the work of the persons appointed, and who 
are better acquainted than anybody else can be with 



THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE. 161 

the needs of their divisions and the efficiency of 
their subordinates, they depend upon the sugges- 
tions of Senators, Representatives, and local politi- 
cians. These advisers are not particularly inter- 
ested in the efficient administration of the govern- 
ment, but they are decidedly interested in the 
advancement of their own political fortunes. Con- 
sequently, when a member of Congress " distributes 
the patronage " of his district, he gives the places, 
not to the men who will do the best work for the 
public, but to those who can do the best work for 
himself. 

It is unsafe in the management of large affairs to 
depend on advice from irresponsible sources, espe- 
cially when there is a selfish interest in giving 
unsound recommendations. When a Senator or 
Representative suggests an unfit appointment, he 
incurs no risk. He does not bear the blame for 
poor work in the department upon which his man 
is- forced, nor can the President visit any punish- 
ment upon him for his bad advice. An administra- 
tive official guilty of a similar betrayal of confidence 
could be degraded or removed. 

From many custom-houses, post-offices, and navy- 
yards we hear accounts of gallant, but unsuccessful, 
fights on the part of the men in charge, against the 
local politicians who desire to debauch the service 
for the profit of their retainers. These fights are 
unsuccessful because the superiors of the men who 
make them find it more to their advantage to have 
the support of the local politicians than to have a 
record of administrative efficiency in a particular 



162 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

quarter. Displeased politicians make their displeas- 
ure felt, and there is no certain retribution for bad 
administration. Thus we have a grotesquely per- 
verted form of responsible government — respon- 
sible to the politicians, but not to the people. 

A good collector could give a good management 
of any custom-house in the country if he were 
allowed a free hand in dealing with his subor- 
dinates. Under the present system we do not 
usually get the good collector in the first place, 
because it is not to the interest of the President's 
local advisers to recommend such a man, and he 
would not be allowed a free hand if we had him, for 
similar reasons. Before there can be a general 
reform the motives for the appointment of the best 
men to all administrative positions and their sup- 
port in doing their work in the best way, regardless 
of politics, must be made as strong as those that 
now dictate submission to the demands of politi- 
cians. The power to make this change through all 
the grades of the services below himself now rests 
with the President. The President alone, if thor- 
oughly bent upon this object, could change the 
whole spirit of the executive administration, to its 
remotest ramifications, although he would be con- 
siderably annoyed during the process by the 
obstructive exercise of the confirming power of the 
always pernicious Senate. Even under our present 
system the President could make all executive offi- 
cials below himself look to the faithful performance 
of their duty, instead of politics, as the condition of 
their retention and promotion. The question is 



THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE. 163 

how to secure this determination on the part of the 
President. The subordinate officials would be held 
to their duty by the supervision of their superiors, 
upon whom their retention in office, promotion, or 
removal would depend. All that would be neces- 
sary to complete the chain would be to subject the 
President to a similar supervision. 

The only power that could exercise this control 
over the chief magistrate would be Congress. But 
Congress, as at present constituted, would be mani- 
festly unfit to exercise such a function. Its mem- 
bers are the chief breeders of demoralization in the 
public service. To make it worthy to be trusted with 
the appointment and removal of the President, it 
must be made responsible itself by being brought 
within the immediate control of its constituents. 
When that is done a few trifling changes will be all 
that is needed to give us a thoroughly capable and 
honest executive administration. All we shall need 
will be the abolition of the Senatorial power of med- 
dling with appointments, and the establishment of a 
uniform tenure during good behavior. 

In France, the President is elected by the National 
Assembly, but as he serves for seven years he is sub- 
ject to no effective responsibility. This is a matter 
of less moment, since the real government of the 
country is in the hands of the ministers, who are 
dependent for their official existence on the majority 
of the moment in the Chamber of Deputies. The 
French system is too rigid as regards the President, 
and too unstable as regards the Cabinet, beside which 
the people have no continuous control over the 



164 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

Chambers. A nearer approach to a true responsible 
republican government is found in Switzerland, 
where the executive administration is in the hands 
of a council, elected by the Federal Assembly for 
three years ; and the President of the confederation, 
whose special powers are only nominal, is elected 
annually by the members of the council from among 
its own members. Owing to the Swiss custom of 
indefinite reelections there is a more effective respon- 
sibility here than appears on the surface. An official 
elected for three years, and expecting to retire to 
private life at the end of that time, may be careless 
in the performance of his duties ; but one who occu- 
pies a position which will be permanent if he con- 
tinues to deserve it, but which he may lose at the 
end of three years if he does not, is likely to be cir- 
cumspect in his conduct. But the chief guaranty of 
good government in Switzerland is the referendum. 
The people there are not obliged to tolerate bad or 
incompetent men for the sake of the measures they 
are supposed to represent. They vote for their men 
and measures separately. If the election of Presi- 
dent of the United States were thrown into the 
House of Representatives under present conditions, 
no excellence of administration would give a Demo- 
cratic incumbent any Republican votes. The reelec- 
tion of a member of the Swiss Federal Council, 
regardless of politics, is a matter of course. The 
recognition of good service in Switzerland does not 
involve the indorsement of an obnoxious policy. 

The source, although not the cause, of all the 
evils in American politics is the Presidential 



THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE. 165 

election, and the Presidential election is dangerous 
because of the peculiar complication of interests 
involved in it. It determines at once a national 
policy that affects the interests and inflames the 
passions of millions of voters, and a wholesale dis- 
tribution of offices involving- the livelihood of hun- 
dreds of thousands more. The President, by his 
veto power, can absolutely tie the hands of Congress, 
and, by his power of appointment and removal, can 
dispose of the fortunes, and almost of the lives, of 
an army of men. By our peculiar electoral methods, 
the choice of this potentate is made to depend upon 
the action of a few voters in the doubtful States. 
One vote in New York may make a change of 
seventy-two in the relative strength of candidates in 
the electoral college, and thereby may elect a Presi- 
dent, alter all the conditions of industry in the 
nation, and deprive hundreds of thousands of fami- 
lies of their means of support. One vote may do all 
this, and that vote may be had for two dollars, if not 
for a glass of whisky. When such tremendous 
results depend literally on the tossing of a coin, a 
Presidential election instills the gambling madness 
into the veins of the whole people. Nothing is seen 
but the stakes, and everything that can help to win 
is justified. Governors and State legislatures are 
chosen, not for their fitness for the work of making 
and administering the laws of the States, but to 
strengthen the party for the next Presidential cam- 
paign. Every attempt to throw off a corrupt local 
ring is checked by the plea that this is not the time 
* — the coming national campaign is too important to 



166 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

permit the harmony of the organization to be dis- 
turbed. Bosses are allowed free loot of city treas- 
uries in exchange for votes for Presidential candi- 
dates. Unfit aspirants are carried into Congress on 
the back of a popular national ticket. 

If the President were deprived of the veto power, 
and the people were allowed to vote directly upon 
measures, all the formidable pressure of commercial 
and industrial interests would be lifted from the 
elections. If all officials held their places on the 
tenure of good behavior there would be no desper- 
ate struggle between ins and outs. If, finally, the 
President himself, instead of owing his office to a 
quadrennial scramble for the floating voters of the 
doubtful States, were elected by the deliberate act 
of an assembly truly representative of the whole 
people, and held his place until the people, through 
a two-thirds vote of that assembly, saAv fit to remove 
him, the whole demoralizing system of national 
campaigns would be cut out by the roots, and local 
officials and policies would have some chance of 
being judged on their merits. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 

It is impossible to combine all conceivable 
improvements in government in one system. 
That unfortunate fact impels me reluctantly to 
omit proportional representation of the completest 
type from an ideal scheme of reform, although 
I believe it will have a useful and important part 
to play in the transition period. The proportional 
plan of electing representatives to legislative bodies 
is so incomparably superior to all existing methods 
that it is not surprising that its advocates should 
regard it with a species of religious enthusiasm. 
It enables every important shade of opinion at the 
time of election to be accurately reflected ; it pro- 
motes the choice of the best and ablest men, as the 
present system promotes that of the worst and most 
commonplace, and it destroys the power of political 
machines. The best form is that proposed by 
Thomas Hare, with modifications in points of detail. 
Under this system the constituencies are grouped, 
several legislators being elected from each district. 
According to Hare's original scheme, indeed, there 
were to be no districts at all, but the entire legisla- 
tive body was to be elected in bulk. This, of 
course, would be subject to insuperable objections. 
In each district the total vote is divided by the 

(167) 



168 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

number of members to be elected, and the quotient 
constitutes the " quota " necessary for a choice. 
The quota, as was shown by Mr. Droop, is more 
accurately reached by dividing the vote by the 
number of members plus one, and adding one to 
the quotient. Each elector votes for as many 
candidates as he pleases, designating them as first 
choice, second choice, and so on, and his vote is 
counted only for that one in the order of preference 
who first needs it. If the quota is six thousand, 
and A receives eight thousand votes, only the 
necessary six thousand are counted for him, and 
the remaining two thousand go to the next indi- 
cated candidates on the ballots. It is in the 
transfer of these surplus votes that the system has 
its weakest point. It is usually proposed to leave 
the selection of the surplus ballots to chance, either 
by lot, or by numbering the ballots as they come 
out of the box and making up the quota of those 
bearing the lowest numbers. Aside from the 
objection to allowing chance to play any part in 
government, it is evident that such methods offer 
too good an opportunity for sharp practice. Mr. 
W. H. Gove illustrates the danger by this example : 
" Suppose one hundred votes cast showing a first 
choice for X, fifty of whom show A as second choice, 
and fifty show B as second choice, and that fifty of 
X's votes are to be transferred as a surplus. Then, 
although the votes to be transferred are selected by 
lot, as the system intends, and although any one 
selection by lot may hardly produce a materially 
different result from any other selection fairly made 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 169 

in the same way, it is evident that unfair enumera- 
tors might, by selecting the votes to be transferred, 
turn over all the fifty surplus votes either to A or B 
as they might choose, and thus the result might be 
very seriously affected." 

To avert this danger, Mr. Gove proposes to alter 
the whole character of the system by depriving the 
voter of his liberty of choice and permitting the 
candidate to determine in advance the disposition 
to be made of his surplus votes. This would destroy 
some of the principal merits of the reform, and 
would leave to political machines a large share of 
the power of which the Hare system would deprive 
them. The desired end can be attained in a much 
simpler way. In the example cited by Mr. Gove, 
the fair way of distributing X's surplus votes would 
be to give twenty-five to A and twenty-five to B. 
This is what would be accomplished by lot, if it fell 
out in exact accordance with the law of chances. 
Why not do it directly ? All that would be neces- 
sary would be to provide that the surplus votes cast 
for any candidate should be distributed among the 
second-choice candidates in the proportions in which 
they were designated on all the ballots of the candi- 
date elected. Suppose, for instance, that Smith, 
Brown, Jones, and Robinson are among the competi- 
tors at a certain election ; that one hundred is the 
quota necessary for choice ; that Smith receives one 
hundred and fifty votes, and is, therefore, elected 
with fifty to spare, and that ninety of Smith's ballots 
bear the name of Brown as second choice, thirty- 
nine that of Jones, and twenty-one that of Robinson. 



170 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

Distributing the surplus votes in this proportion, 
Brown would receive thirty, Jones thirteen, and 
Robinson seven. This would be as fair as the 
fairest conceivable lot, and fairer than any lot that 
would be realized in practice. To carry the illus- 
tration further : Suppose that Brown had originally 
eighty first-choice votes, which the thirty transferred 
from Smith would raise to one hundred and ten, 
leaving ten to be distributed as a surplus. In deter- 
mining the proper proportions in this case only the 
eighty original votes could be used, as there would 
be no ballots to represent the thirty obtained from 
Smith. Of these eighty, suppose forty designated 
Smith as second choice, twenty-five Jones, and 
fifteen Robinson. Smith being already elected, 
his name would be eliminated, leaving the third- 
choice names to be counted on his forty ballots, of 
which Jones may be assumed to have twenty-five 
and Robinson fifteen. Thus, of Brown's original 
eighty votes Jones would have fifty as next choice, 
and Robinson thirty. Consequently, Jones would 
be entitled to five-eighths and Robinson to three- 
eighths of the surplus ten. Disregarding fractions 
and taking the nearest integer, Jones would gain 
six votes and Robinson four. 

The only objection to this method of transferring 
surplus votes is that the ballots are not transferred 
with them, and consequently the persons who have 
cast unnecessary votes for successful candidates are 
limited to a single additional choice. It is not likely 
that this drawback would prove serious enough to 
overbalance the advantage of absolute fairness in 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 171 

the first transfer, but if it should turn out so in 
practice the necessity of resorting to lot could still 
be obviated by the adoption of the plan proposed by 
Mr. Daniel H. Remsen, in his book on " Primary 
Elections." Mr. Remsen's method is thus described : 
"The votes which constitute the quota of each 
candidate having more than a quota of first-choice 
votes shall be (i) the votes of all those voters making 
no second choice ; * (2) the votes of all those voters 
whose second-choice candidate shall have received a 
quota of first-choice votes ; f (3) the votes of all those 
voters whose second-choice candidate shall have 
received the least number of first-choice votes; J 
and thereafter, in order, the votes of all those voters 
whose second-choice candidate received the next 
higher number of first-choice votes until the said 
quota is filled ; but when the excessive votes then 
remaining to be credited would give any candidate 
more than a quota, that excess shall form a part of 
the quota in lieu of an equal number of votes having 
an unappropriated second choice, last forming a part 
of the quota as aforesaid. . . . When the quota 
of a candidate shall be partly composed of second- 
choice votes, the votes which constitute this quota 
shall be (1) the second-choice votes placed to his 
credit ;§ and thereafter first-choice votes in the 
order as -provided above." II 



* Otherwise they would have no elective power. 

f As they are not needed by the second-choice candidate. 

% As such a candidate is supposed to be the least desirable. 

§ Otherwise they would have no elective power. 

I Daniel H. Remsen, " Primary Elections." 



172 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

The Hare system, with some such modification, 
would be an ideal method of securing the representa- 
tion of all shades of political opinion in exact propor- 
tion to their strength in the community. Under it no 
ingenuity on the part of politicians would enable a 
popular minority to secure a majority of the repre- 
sentatives by any means short of fraud in the count. 
No other plan that allows complete liberty to the 
individual voter offers an absolute safeguard against 
this possibility. The Free List system secures the 
same result as far as parties are concerned, but it 
sacrifices the preferences of the individual. The 
plans of election by preponderance of choice, such 
as the Burnitz system, and that employed by the 
labor party in Cleveland, are peculiarly susceptible 
to the danger of minority rule in its most aggravated 
form. The Cleveland method is thus described by 
Dr. L. B. Tuckerman : 

"(i) Each voter will write on his ballot as many 
names as there are persons to be chosen, writing the 
names in the order of his choice ; first choice, first ; 
second choice, second ; and so on. 

" (2) In tallying the vote, the tellers will read the 
last name on each ballot first, crediting that name 
with one tally ; the name next to the last second, 
crediting the same with two tallies ; and so on, always 
crediting the name written first on each ballot with 
as many tallies as there names written on that ballot. 
And if a voter fails to write as many names as he is 
allowed to, no variation is made in the method of 
tallying — the voter simply loses so much of his 
vote, which he has a right to do, if he chooses — the 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 173 

last name still counts one tally, the next to the last 
two, and so on. 

"(3) The person receiving the highest number of 
tallies is first declared elected ; the person receiving 
the next highest, next, and so on, until all the vacan- 
cies are filled. In case of a tie, with but one vacancy 
to be filled, the incumbent is determined by lot. 

"The practical working of. this rule (and we have 
tried it over and over again) is that every element 
in the electing body large enough to have a quota 
finds itself proportionately represented, and by its 
own first choice or choices." 

This desirable result would be attained under this 
system as long as all the voters acted freely and 
independently, but it would always be easy for an 
organized minority to beat an unorganized majority. 
A simple example will make the point clear. Sup- 
pose a constituency in which there are five hundred 
Democratic and four hundred and fifty Republican 
voters. vSuppose that five places are to be filled, and 
that the Democrats, acting without concert, divide 
their vote equally among twenty candidates, while 
the Republicans, disciplined by an efficient machine, 
concentrate their votes on five candidates in uniform 
order. The vote of each of the twenty Democratic 
candidates would be : 

25x5+25x4+25X3+25x2+25 = 375 
The vote of the five Republican candidates would 
be: 

A — 450X5 = 2,250 

B — 450X4 = 1,800 

C — 450X3 - i.35o 

D — 450X2 = 900 

E — 450X1= 45o 



174 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

Thus the minority would elect its entire ticket, 
and the majority would not secure a single repre- 
sentative. The possibility of such a result, of course, 
would necessitate the creation of a strong Demo- 
cratic machine to prevent the waste of the Demo- 
cratic vote, and thus the politicians would be restored 
to power, independent action within the parties 
would be effectually suppressed, and the only 
advantage gained would be the division of the offices 
between the organized parties and such numerous 
bodies of independents as could agree upon joint 
action outside of them in fair proportion to their 
numbers. 

The same results would follow from the Burnitz 
system, which is simply the Cleveland system 
inverted. Under this plan the lower-choice votes 
are divided by the numbers representing the order 
of choice, instead of multiplying the higher-choice 
votes by the numbers in inverse order. Treating 
by this method the example already cited, we have 
five hundred Democratic votes equally divided 
among twenty candidates, each of whom would 
receive : 

25+¥+¥+¥+¥- = 57A 

The four hundred and fifty Republican votes 
would be distributed among five candidates thus: 



A- 


.450 


-^450 


B- 


.4|Q 


= 225 


C- 


45Q 
3 


= 150 


D- 


.JSQ 


= 112^ 


E- 


. 4fi0 
5 


= QO 



All the candidates of the minority party would 
have more votes than any of the majority party, and 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 175 

all would be elected. This possibility is inseparably- 
involved in any system that admits the principle of 
decision by plurality. The only way to avoid it is 
to require either an absolute majority or a definite 
quota for an election. With that safeguard the 
original voter can feel free to act as he pleases 
without the fear of contributing to the defeat of 
his party. Under the Hare system it is mathemat- 
ically impossible for a minority of voters to secure a 
majority of representatives, unless under circum- 
stances so exceptional as not to need to be taken 
into account. 

Complete proportional representation requires the 
election of several members — to insure fair results, 
an odd number — from one district. It is therefore 
inconsistent with the uninterrupted control of the 
constituents over their representatives, since no sin- 
gle member has a definite constituency that can call 
him to account. It implies election for prescribed 
terms, or at least the simultaneous renewal of an 
entire group of representatives, and I do not know 
of any practicable method of combining it with the 
continuous responsibility of the individual repre- 
sentative to a determinate body of electors. This 
continuous individual responsibility I regard as even 
more important than the maintenance of an exactly 
uniform proportion between the strength of the 
various groups of electors and the numbers of their 
representatives in the legislative body, especially as 
the referendum and initiative would furnish a per- 
fect corrective for any injustice that might occur in 
connection with particular measures. Proportional 



176 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

representation would insure the choice of men in 
whom the people had confidence at the moment of 
election, but it would not afford any guaranty that 
the elected representatives would retain or deserve 
that confidence the next day. That guaranty would 
be given by the system of continuous effective 
responsibility. Under one plan the people would 
make successive disconnected trials at long inter- 
vals, and they might make mistakes every time ; 
under the other they could correct mistakes as soon 
as they were discovered. It would be the difference 
between shooting at a mark with a pistol and play- 
ing on it with a hose. A good shot might fail to 
plant his bullet in the right spot, but anybody could 
turn the stream on it after a moment's experiment- 
ing. 

But although all the advantages of proportional 
representation in its most perfect form can not be 
be combined with that election by single-membered 
constituencies, which is essential to complete and 
uninterrupted responsibility, there is no reason why 
some of them should not be. The preferential prin- 
ciple can be applied as well to the election of one 
member as to that of several. Suppose, for instance, 
that in a certain assembly four hundred and fifty 
votes are cast, of which two hundred and fifty are 
Democratic and two hundred Republican. I use the 
party names, although I think that party divisions 
would not long survive the accomplishment of the 
various changes heretofore proposed. Suppose the 
Democratic vote were divided among five candidates, 
and the Republican among two, in these proportions : 



PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 177 

DEMOCRATIC. REPUBLICAN. 

Wilson So McKinley 105 

Mills .. 75 Reed 95 

Crisp 40 

Johnson 30 

Cockran 25 

Suppose that a clear majority were required to 
elect, but that each voter were allowed to indicate 
his preference among the different candidates, after 
his first choice, his vote being counted for the one 
for whom it would first become effective. Suppose 
that, in the absence of a majority for any candidate, 
it were required to eliminate successively the candi- 
dates having the fewest first-choice votes and dis- 
tribute their votes among the others in the order of 
preference. We should begin, then, in the case 
assumed, by dropping Mr. Cockran. The distribu- 
tion of his votes according to the next choice of 
those who cast them might give Wilson go, Mills 85, 
Crisp 43, and Johnson 32, with the votes of Reed and 
McKinley unchanged. Johnson would go next, and 
his 32 votes might raise Wilson's strength to 105, 
while Mills might have 95, and Crisp 50. Next 
Crisp would be eliminated, giving Wilson, perhaps, 
135, and Mills 115. Reed would now drop out, and 
all his votes would go to McKinley, who would have 
200. Lastly Mills would be excluded, and, with the 
addition of his 115 votes, Wilson would have 250 
and be elected. The Democratic majority, which 
under the prevailing plan of plurality elections 
would have been defeated, unless its members 
had abandoned the privilege of independent voting, 
would be successful, and would be represented by 
12 



178 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

the man of its choice, without the intervention of a 
political machine. 

Of course if a number of assemblies were com- 
prised in the constituency holding the election, the 
transfers of votes just described would not be made 
in each assembly, but would be effected by the cen- 
tral canvassing authority. If it happened that so 
many candidates were in the field, and the factional 
divisions were so pronounced, that a majority could 
not be secured, even after all possible eliminations 
and transfers had been made, a new election would 
be ordered, as described in the first chapter. The 
choice in this case would be limited to the candi- 
dates remaining in the field at the close of the first 
count, if the number did not exceed five, or to the 
five highest if it did. If there were no choice on 
this trial, a third ballot between the two highest 
would settle it. 

This system would absolutely dispense with all 
occasion for caucuses, conventions, or party machin- 
ery of any kind. If parties continued to exist, which 
would be hardly possible, no voter would need to 
pay any attention to tickets prepared in advance, 
for anybody could vote for any candidate he pre- 
ferred without in the least endangering the success 
of his party. The majority would rule, whether it 
scattered its first-choice votes or not, and the bosses, 
whose present influence is derived from the fact 
that they can pin the rank and file of the citizens to 
the alternative of voting the regular ticket or incur- 
ring party defeat, would have to go out of politics. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE WORK OF THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY. 

As our political system is now organized, the 
individual voter lias nothing to do except to read 
his paper — if he can read — attend the primaries, 
if he think it worth while, argue with his neighbors, 
and vote once a year, or once in two years, for a list 
of candidates prepared for him by his party mana- 
gers. This degree of political activity is certainly 
better than absolute stagnation, of the Russian 
kind. But it is far from exerting the stimulating 
and enlightening effect that would be produced by 
such a system of organized effort as would be 
created by the enrollment of the whole voting 
population in a network of primary assemblies, 
invested with jurisdiction over all departments of 
government, local, State, and national. 

Let us suppose this system in operation, and try 
to picture to ourselves the ordinary course of pro- 
ceedings in the assemblies. It is the night of the 
regular monthly meeting of the assembly of the 
nineteenth precinct of New York City. There are 
six or seven hundred voters in the hall — the pre- 
cincts in New York being unusually large. The 
gathering is called to order by the chairman of the 
previous meeting, a new chairman is elected, he 
appoints a secretary, and the assembly is ready for 

(179) 



180 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

business. A member of Good Government Club A 
rises to remark that there have been rumors of 
corruption in the police force, and asks the council- 
man for the precinct, who is in attendance at the 
meeting, what he knows about it, and what he pro- 
poses to do. The councilman responds that he has 
heard of the rumors referred to, and will bring them 
to the attention of the superintendent of police at 
the next meeting of the council, and insist upon a 
satisfactory explanation, or the removal of the 
accused officials. 

A citizen complains that the milkmen disturb his 
rest by rattling over the streets before daylight. 
A milkman explains that it is necessary to be out 
early, but that the wagons would cause no disturb- 
ance were it not for the bad condition of the street 
pavements. Thereupon a resolution is passed 
instructing the councilman to find out exactly what 
defects there are in the pavements and who is 
responsible for them, and report at the next meet- 
ing. 

A resolution is offered calling for a popular vote 
on the proposition to abolish the State and local 
taxes upon personal property and improvements. 
After some discussion it is laid over until the next 
meeting for further consideration. 

The representative in Congress from the district 
having died, and due notice having been given that 
an election would be held this evening, nominations 
are called for. Half a dozen candidates are pro- 
posed, most of them being well-known men whose 
names are offered at the same time in all the other 



THE WORK OF THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY. 181 

precincts of the district. The hand-stamps and blank 
slips of paper are put in the booths, and the voters 
enter one by one and prepare their ballots, stamping 
as many names as they please in the order of their 
preference. When the voting is completed the 
chairman and secretary count the ballots in the 
presence of the meeting, and under the immediate 
supervision of representatives of the various candi- 
dates. The returns and ballots are then sealed and 
forwarded to the Secretary of State for the final 
canvass with the votes of the other precincts in the 
district. 

The next meeting, in addition to dealing with such 
local matters as demand attention, may have to take 
action upon a new tariff, and the next may be called 
upon to handle the question of woman suffrage, or 
prohibition. In the course of a year all the great, 
practical problems of government would receive 
intelligent discussion, and some of them would reach 
a definite settlement. 

The average Athenian citizen, who did not read 
books, but received his education by public discus- 
sion in precisely this way, has been said to have 
been better trained politically than the average 
member of the British House of Commons. The 
illiterate American citizen is now almost totally 
inaccessible to enlightening influences, but the pop- 
ular assembly would give him more instruction than 
is enjoyed at present by the ordinary reader of books 
and papers. The "ignorant vote" then would lose 
most of its dangers, even if men unable to read and 
write were allowed to continue to take part in politics. 



182 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

But it is not likely that they would enjoy that privi- 
lege very long. The result of the referendum in 
California, on the question of establishing an educa- 
tional qualification, indicates clearly that the masses 
of the people do not consider the rule of illiterates 
an essential part of popular government. No doubt 
one of the first acts of a true democracy would be 
to make education universal and compulsory on the 
one hand, and to ordain, on the other, that nobody 
should be intrusted with a share in the government 
until he had availed himself of the privileges so 
offered. 

If the system of popular assemblies once took root 
it is likely that the meeting-hall would supply the 
need of a bond of union for the neighborhood. The 
church used to be such a center of neighborly asso- 
ciation, and in the country districts the schoolhouse 
is now. But the precinct assembly hall would be 
something more than either. It would touch the 
life of the community at all points. In time, endear- 
ing associations would grow up around it. In many 
cases public-spirited citizens would give their pre- 
cincts handsome buildings, which, in addition to the 
meeting-halls, would contain libraries, gymnasia, 
baths, and club-rooms. In other cases the people 
would provide such buildings for themselves by tax- 
ation. Instead of a huge, chaotic aggregation of 
unconnected atoms, the nation would be a harmo- 
nious organism, with every atom occupying a recog- 
nized place. The individual citizen would have a 
civic home ; he would be surrounded in his precinct 
assembly and club-house with faces that would soon 



THE WORK OF THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY. 183 

become familiar; he would daily enjoy and appre- 
ciate the advantages of public order, and no man 
would be rendered indifferent to good government 
by the feeling that his poverty deprived him of any 
"stake in the country." 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE BOSS. 

America has made two striking and original con- 
tributions to the art of government. One is the 
Supreme Court, invested with power to annul uncon- 
stitutional legislation. The other is the Boss. The 
former contribution is the one in which the Amer- 
ican people take more pride, but the latter surpasses 
it in practical importance. 

Every form of government develops its own types 
of leadership. Some forms breed demagogues, oth- 
ers statesmen, others military adventurers, others 
seraglio intriguers, others masterful orators. Ours 
breeds bosses. From a scientific point of view the 
system of boss-rule is one of the most perfect and 
beautifully complex developments of modern civili- 
zation. It is a convincing illustration of the possible 
stability of a pyramid resting on its apex. The apex 
on which the boss rests his pyramid of government 
is a body of a few hundreds or thousands of men, 
who agree to render him any political services 
required in exchange for support at the public 
expense or protection in unlawful occupations. 
This force he employs to gain possession of the 
machinery of a party — preferably the one locally 
dominant. 

Unless there is a rival boss in possession, this is 

(184) 



THE BOSS. 185 

not hard, for it is an unprofitable political servant 
that can not make the tour of a dozen primary polling 
places, and deposit at least one vote at each in the 
course of a day. Against such a force, an undisci- 
plined mob of reformers, limited to one vote each, 
and giving politics only such attention as they can 
spare from more serious occupations, is as helpless 
as an infant Sunday-school class against a regiment 
of regulars. When there are two aspirants for the 
boss-ship, the one that gets control of the member- 
ship rolls and the counting machinery of the party 
wins. So conclusive is this preliminary test of 
strength considered, that the embryo boss who fails 
here generally declines to trouble himself with the 
useless formality of voting his followers at the 
primaries, but either bolts or makes terms with 
his successful rival, and waits for a more favorable 
opportunity. 

Having once carried the primaries, the new polit- 
ical leader finds easy sailing thereafter. He holds a 
convention and nominates a local ticket, which, by 
virtue of its " regularity," commands the support of 
the entire party and is duly elected. The retainers 
who have made the victory possible are appropriately 
rewarded, some with city offices, some with contracts 
or jobs under contractors, and some with police protec- 
tion in dive-keeping, and other less reputable occu- 
pations, whose profits depend on a good understand- 
ing with the governing powers. The hold of the 
boss on the party machinery is strengthened by 
purging the rolls of the precinct clubs or associa- 
tions of unruly members, and manning the organ- 



186 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

ization throughout with officers who can be depended 
upon to let in only the right kind of votes at the 
primaries, and to correct in the counting any mis- 
takes that may accidentally occur in the voting. 
The dictator is now in a position to make the 
political war pay its own expenses, and a handsome 
profit in addition. Beside the regular percentage on 
salaries, which his retainers in office cheerfully pay 
as the skipper's proportion of the booty captured on 
a successful cruise, he levies assessments on rich 
corporations in need of official favors; on large 
property-holders who wish to pay small taxes ; on 
saloon-keepers who desire to conduct their estab- 
lishments under liberal interpretations of the laws ; 
on gamblers, confidence men, and other followers of 
vicious professions ; on purveyors of public supplies ; 
on contractors for municipal work, and in short on 
everybody whom the local government can either 
help or harm. His power brings in wealth and his 
wealth procures more power. He sends a solid 
delegation to the State convention of his party, and, 
by judicious combinations with the friends of candi- 
dates from different sections, he allies his machine 
with the State organization, and through it, if suc- 
cessful at the polls, with the State government. He 
sends another solid delegation to the Legislature, 
and markets its votes on the most favorable terms. 
Finally, if ambitious, he exerts his power as a State 
leader in the national convention, and later, under 
favoring conditions, his trades with the boss of the 
other party for local offices may determine the choice 
of a President of the United States. This is the 



THE BOSS. 187 

mighty pyramid that rests upon the apex of a little 
band of political men-of-all-work willing to devote 
their entire attention to the duties laid out for 
them by their employer. And the curious thing 
about it is that this delicately balanced pyramid is 
in a state of stable equilibrium. When disturbed it 
always tends to return to its position on its point — 
never to one on the broad base of popular rule. If, 
by a superhuman effort, it is set squarely upon its 
base, it rolls over on its point again as soon as the 
reformers who righted it let go their hold. 

This apparent paradox is merely the inevitable 
outcome of the principles of human nature. The 
boss wins because at each stage of his proceedings 
his forces are stronger than those of his opponents. 
His drilled mercenaries are more effective for 
carrying primaries than the undisciplined levies, 
hampered by the troublesome impedimenta of con- 
scientious scruples, that oppose them. When the 
primaries are carried, he has at his disposal the 
potent force of party spirit. His fortunes in the 
campaign are linked with those of the national 
organization that holds a prescriptive right to the 
support of a majority of the voters of the city. 
Opposition to his ticket is disloyalty to the party. 
When he has attained power he commands the 
alliance of the great interests that consider it 
necessary to stand well with the authorities ; and 
all the men for whom he has procured office or 
other favors, together with their relatives and 
friends, are diligent workers in his behalf. Here, 
as everywhere, it is the first step that costs. The 



188 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

first primaries of the boss correspond to the mil- 
lionaire's first ten thousand dollars. After the 
foothold is gained, power flows in on one as wealth 
on the other. And even a complete victory at the 
primaries is not indispensable, unless there is another 
boss to fight. When there are only unorganized 
reformers to contend with, the boss can win if he 
can control a third or a fourth of the delegates in a 
convention. With that force available for trading, 
only a few judicious combinations are needed to 
secure a majority. 

The boss system, having grown up of itself under 
our present political methods, has thereby proved 
its appropriateness to its environment. It is a case 
of the survival of the fittest, or rather of creation by 
direct adaptation. Boss-rule has come to fill what 
would otherwise have been a political vacuum. 
And, although absolutely bad, it is not relatively an 
unmixed evil. It does for us after a fashion what, 
without it, we should have no means of having done 
at all. It introduces a certain unity and responsi- 
bility into the chaos of American municipal govern- 
ment. When streets are dirty, sewers dilapidated, 
schools inefficient, and police corrupt, the people 
may not know what particular officials are legally 
responsible, but they do know that their boss is not 
giving them a good government, and that it is time 
to change bosses. Sometimes, where abuses have 
been flagrant and the public patience sorely tried, 
such a realization has been known to work an 
improvement that has lasted for as much as two or 
three years. 



THE BOSS. 189 

As the boss is the creation of our present methods, 
the question arises whether he would nourish if the 
system of government were changed. The natural 
presumption is that he would not. A type of animal 
life developed in accordance with the needs of life 
on land would not nourish in the water. The very 
perfection with wmich an organism meets the require- 
ments of one environment is a disadvantage to it 
when placed in another, and certainly there is no 
more highly specialized type of animal life than the 
boss. But let us imagine the experiment tried. 
Suppose an aspirant for the career of a boss to make 
his attempt in a city of five hundred thousand inhabit- 
ants, organized on the plan heretofore described. As 
there is no general ticket to be elected, there can be 
no primaries to capture. The embryo boss must send 
his retainers into two hundred precinct assemblies, 
each containing several hundred voters of all parties 
(if parties continue to exist) and induce at least two- 
thirds of them to recall their councilmen and elect 
others favorable to his schemes. As it is hardly sup- 
posable that his forces at the start will be numerous 
enough to allow him to spare more than five or six 
men to each assembly, and as impromptu nomina- 
tions and the preferential system of voting will 
make it impossible for him to secure any advantage 
from the presentation of a "regular ticket," he is 
likely to find his undertaking rather arduous before 
he goes any farther. But assuming that five or six 
heelers are able to hypnotize four or five hundred 
voters in each precinct, the next step offers still more 
serious difficulties. The mayor must be removed, 



190 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

for until this is done the retainers of the boss can 
not get the rewards earned by their extraordinary ser- 
vices. But to remove the mayor, two months' notice 
is necessary, and that means an appeal to the pre- 
cinct assemblies, now fully aroused from their 
hypnotic trance. But, suppose even this ordeal 
passed, the mayor removed, one subservient to the 
boss elected, and a clean sweep made of the subor- 
dinate officials for the benefit of the invading force. 
Instead of being ended, the work of the new dictator 
would have only begun. He would have proceeded 
thus far, simply because the people had allowed him 
to do so. If, at any time, they became dissatisfied 
with his rule, they could resume their control as 
easily as if they had never given it up. The boss 
could not fight from behind the intrenchments of 
subservient committees and packed primaries. He 
would have to stay out in the open, where his vote, 
like that of each of his followers, would count one, 
and the majority could always rule if it chose. And 
the fact that he retained his political existence on 
one day would give no assurance that he would keep 
it the next. Whenever the people took offense 
— and a boss never fails to offend them sooner or 
later — they could extinguish him on the instant, 
without waiting for a distant election day with the 
chance that their anger might cool in the meantime. 
And even while his power lasted the boss would be 
deprived of the most precious privileges of his class. 
He could not assess corporations and millionaires 
for the price of favorable city ordinances, for every 
such ordinance would be subject to rejection by 



THE BOSS. 191 

popular vote. In such circumstances, is it likely that 
a boss could even begin to grow ? 

A boss is a specialist, who finds his opportunity in 
the management of political machinery too compli- 
cated to be worked by any but professional hands. 
When the machinery is made so simple that the 
people can work it easily and surely for themselves, 
the boss will disappear. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE REFERENDUM IN CALIFORNIA. 

While direct legislation is still generally regarded 
as a foreign novelty, its principle is recognized to a 
greater or less extent in every State in the Union. 
No State has made greater advances in this direc- 
tion than California, where the abuses of power by 
officials have been so flagrant as to compel the 
people to take continually greater shares of the 
work of law-making into their own hands. 

Like other States, California is governed under a 
constitution adopted by popular vote. In 1879, 
when the present constitution was ratified, the 
people were asked to express at the polls their 
opinion on the subject of Chinese immigration. 
The result of this referendum (883 in favor of the 
Chinese to 154,638 against them), in conjunction 
with a similar vote in Nevada, had much to do with 
the inception of the national restrictive legislation 
that followed. The practice of consulting the 
people with regard to proposed policies took root, 
and has since been widely applied. At the election 
of 1892 four propositions were thus submitted to 
vote. One of them related to an educational quali- 
fication for the suffrage. It might have been 
supposed that such a measure would be unpopular, 
and certainly no legislature would have ventured to 

(192) 



THE REFERENDUM IN CALIFORNIA. 193 

commit itself to it without knowing what the voters 
thought. The result showed that a majority in 
every county in the State favored the restriction of 
the suffrage, the aggregate vote cast for the propo- 
sition being 151,320 to 41,059 against it. With this 
encouragement the next Legislature found no diffi- 
culty in framing a constitutional amendment, 
limiting the franchise to men able to read the 
constitution in the English language and write 
their names, and nobody undertook to amass polit- 
ical capital by denouncing the scheme as an attempt 
to create an aristocracy. Another proposition voted 
upon at the same time was one to settle the question 
whether the people wanted to elect United States 
Senators themselves, or whether they preferred to 
have the work done by the legislatures. The people 
decided, by a vote of 187,958 to 13,342, that they 
would rather do it themselves, and again the fifty- 
four counties were all agreed. 

The new constitution of California is less a consti- 
tution than a code of laws. Having tasted the pleas- 
ures of law-making, the people are pursuing them 
with progressive avidity. In 1890 they voted on 
one constitutional amendment ; in 1 892 on five, and 
this year they will vote on nine. They would have 
had ten before them this year if the Supreme Court 
had not decided that one of the proposed amend- 
ments had been improperly submitted. The tend- 
ency of these changes in the organic law is all in 
the direction of taking power away from representa- 
tive bodies and giving it to the people immediately 
interested. For instance, all city charters used to be 



194 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

framed by the Legislature. Then cities of over one 
hundred thousand inhabitants were given the power 
to adopt their own charters, subject to legislative 
approval. Next this privilege was extended to cities 
of twenty thousand inhabitants, and now it is enjoyed 
by all places with three thousand five hundred or 
over. A fertile source of scandal in past sessions of 
the Legislature has been the formation of new coun- 
ties. A constitutional amendment to be voted on 
this year will abolish this by authorizing the Legis- 
lature to pass general laws, under which the people 
who desire to form new counties will be able to do it 
for themselves. 

No county, city, town, township, or school district 
is allowed to incur any indebtedness without the 
assent of two-thirds of its qualified electors voting 
at an election. Whenever a new schoolhouse is to 
be built, or a sewer system constructed, or any 
other public work undertaken, for which an issue of 
bonds is necessary, the people have to sanction it by 
their votes. Even the Legislature can not raise the 
State debt above $300,000 without the consent of the 
voters, which is equivalent to saying that it can not 
now incur any new indebtedness at all. 

The establishment of high schools, by counties, 
towns, or union districts, has been left to the people 
at the polls. 

The control of irrigation is in the hands of the 
people of the localities interested. The voters in 
any drainage area may have an irrigation district 
marked off, with such boundaries as they desire, and 
may authorize an issue of bonds for the construction 



THE REFERENDUM IN CALIFORNIA. 195 

of canals and ditches, the condemnation and purchase 
of water-rights, and other purposes appropriate to 
the objects desired, and the payments on these bonds 
are met by taxes on the lands in the districts. 

But the longest advance toward direct popular 
rule was made by the last Legislature, which 
inserted a provision in the county government law, 
requiring the board of supervisors of any county, 
on petition of half the qualified electors, to submit 
any proposed ordinance to vote, and making such 
ordinances, when ratified by a majority at the polls, 
valid as if passed by the supervisors in the ordinary 
way. This, of course, is the initiative in its com- 
pletes! form, the only material variation from the 
Swiss system being the large proportion of signa- 
tures required to set it going. In view of the ease 
with which signatures to petitions are obtained in 
this country, this is not a serious defect. Any 
measure for which there is an earnest, popular 
demand, can easily command the required number 
of names. 

At the last session of the Legislature, an attempt 
was made to secure the submission of a constitu- 
tional amendment establishing the initiative and 
referendum in State matters. The referendum 
alone could probably have been obtained, but the 
legislative mind had not been educated quite up to 
the initiative, and the two fell together. It is con- 
fidently expected that both will be gained at the 
coming session. Should this expectation prove well 
founded, California may be the first American State 
to establish true democratic government. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SOME PRACTICAL EXAMPLES. 

The test of a pudding is traditionally and justly 
believed to be in the eating. If the methods of 
government advocated in this book had been in 
operation during the past quarter of a century, how 
would they have affected the settlement of the 
practical problems we have been called upon to 
meet within that time ? 

In municipal affairs the most striking instance of 
misgovernment recorded in American history was 
the rule of the Tweed ring in New York. Tweed 
was a boss who rose to power like any other boss, 
except in so far as his methods were modified by 
the fact that he had the peculiar organization of 
Tammany to work with. The very existence of 
such a ruler would have been impossible under a 
system of government which gave the people com- 
plete and continuous control over their agents, and 
left no plausible ground on which political machines 
could appeal for popular support. But if a Tweed 
had been able to exist under such a system he could 
never have maintained his frauds without detection 
and punishment. Even if the ring had obtained 
complete control of the mayor, the auditor, and all 
the subordinate executive officials, it could not pos- 
sibly have captured every member of a city council 



SOME PRACTICAL EXAMPLES. 197 

elected independently by several hundred free popu- 
lar assemblies, and all subject to recall at the pleas- 
ure of their constituents. Even one such member, 
representing- one solitary uncorrupted precinct, would 
have been able to lay bare all the records of the 
ring, and after that the rest would have had to join 
in the pursuit or be replaced by others who would. 
As it was, although it was generally suspected that 
something was wrong, the actual exposure of the 
Tweed conspiracy depended upon the coincidence 
of two extraordinary events. A subordinate official 
copied off the secret accounts of the ring, and he had 
the good fortune to intrust them to an incorruptible 
newspaper proprietor. There was no certain, official 
means of extracting information from unwilling cus- 
todians. But for treason in his camp, combined with 
his inability to buy back his betrayed secrets, Tweed 
might have stolen millions more. 

A parallel case is disclosed by the recent investi- 
gations of the Lexow committee. But for a combi- 
nation of national hard times and reckless political 
mismanagement in the State, the party friendly to 
Tammany would not have lost control of the Legis- 
lature, and if the other party had not secured a ma- 
jority there, no investigating committee would have 
been appointed. But even after the investigation 
had been held, and the truth about police corruption 
extracted, little of practical importance was accom- 
plished. Most of the smirched officials retained their 
places, and Tammany offered the excuse, which was 
sustained by the facts, that the blackmail and 
bribery uncovered were not peculiar to its own rule, 



198 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

but had existed under all city administrations. 
Under the plan of popular government proposed, 
no such excuse would have been available, for at the 
first hint of corruption some member of the council, 
not needing to wait for a partisan legislative majority 
to order an investigation, would have probed for the 
facts, and the guilty officers either would have been 
dismissed at once or would have brought their supe- 
riors down with them. In any case the question 
would have been, not whether one political organi- 
zation deserved more general blame than another, 
but whether certain individual officials had been 
guilty of specific misconduct or not. If they had, 
they would have had to go, and their superiors 
could not have shielded them without inviting the 
same fate for themselves. 

In State affairs an excellent example of the com- 
parative working of the two systems is found in the 
course of the New York Legislature with regard to 
the government of certain cities. The Democratic 
Legislature of 1893 passed a series of bills modify- 
ing the governments of these places in the interest 
of local politicians. That these measures were 
locally unpopular was sufficiently demonstrated by 
their political results, the vote of Erie County, for 
instance, changing within a year from a small 
Democratic plurality to a Republican plurality of 
over ten thousand. Nevertheless, the bills had 
passed, and they had to be subsequently repealed, 
at the cost of much intervening trouble and con- 
fusion. The only way in which Democrats could 
resent an invasion of local self-government was to 



SOME PRACTICAL EXAMPLES. 199 

assist in a political revolution which put the enemies 
of their national policy into power and discouraged 
the friends of Democratic principles throughout the 
Union. With a government organized on the plan 
suggested, no such trouble could have arisen in the 
first place, because home rule is of the essence of 
the system, and no Legislature would have had 
authority to interfere with it. But if it had been 
possible to start the schemes by which Mr. Sheehan 
and his allies made so much trouble for themselves 
and others, they could have been stopped before 
they had accomplished any damage. The people of 
Buffalo, and the other cities affected, could simply 
have recalled their representatives, and the matter 
would have been settled without a political upheaval. 
Of course the actual procedure would have been that 
when the representatives found how their conduct 
was regarded at home, they would have abandoned 
their plans before their constituents had a chance to 
recall them. 

In national matters the proposed system would 
have saved us most of the troubles we have experi- 
enced since the war. We should never had the 
discreditable wrangle between Congress and Presi- 
dent Johnson over reconstruction. The President 
would not have had the veto power, but if he had 
disapproved of the proposed legislation of Congress 
he would have demanded the referendum, and that 
would have ended the controversy. In the same 
way the tariff and silver questions would have been 
settled, sharply and decisively, nearly twenty years 
ago, and we should have had peace. Obviously we 



200 SUGGESTIONS ON GOVERNMENT. 

should not have had a disputed Presidential election 
in 1876, nor at any other time. We might have had 
occasionally a close vote in Congress between two 
popular candidates, but it is plain that such an inci- 
dent would not have aroused the passions engendered 
by a struggle involving the fate of two political 
armies. 

These are specimen instances. I can think of no 
problem of government, national, State, or local, in 
whose treatment the new methods would not bear 
comparison with the old to equal advantage. 



Suggestions 



ON 



Government 



W?7; ;Z- 



RIALTO SERIES. No. 18. Dec, 94. Monthly. Sub., 88.0 
Entered at Chicago Post Office as second-class matter. 



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